CARLTON COUNTY, MINNESOTA

A new chapter
for the Carlton
school site.

A neighborhood of small buildings, generous family homes and green courtyards. Built around the simple pleasure of walking.

Explore the neighborhood

A Courtyard Urbanist concept · October 2026

Photorealistic aerial vision of the Carlton courtyard neighborhood, with colorful traditional buildings, planted courtyards and a central public piazza. — THE CARLTON SCHOOL SITEIllustrative vision

13.43 acresCampus + proposed County parcel

82 buildingsFour- and five-story buildings

~830 homesPreliminary area-based estimate

50%Three- and four-bedroom homes

01 / THE VISION

City life.
Courtyard calm.

Reimagine the former school campus as a compact, welcoming neighborhood: front doors on friendly streets, everyday destinations at the corners, and gardens just beyond the buildings.

The proposal pairs traditional Helsinki architecture with Minnesota’s material character. Four-story buildings form the middle of each block; five-story corners mark intersections. Standing-seam metal roofs, warm masonry colors, dormers, bay windows and recessed loggias give each building its own identity.

A public piazza and flush shared streets make room for meeting, strolling and neighborhood life. Inside the blocks, planted resident courtyards offer space to grow food, gather at a picnic table and play in the sand.

Photorealistic courtyard vision with leafy trees, community garden beds, a children’s play area and gathering spaces enclosed by traditional apartment buildings. — Courtyard vision. Room for ordinary, everyday life.

Streets for people

Proposed 20 ft total woonerf corridors: shared paving, no raised curbs or driveway cuts, with entrances connected throughout the district.

Green at the heart

Protected resident gardens, 24 raised beds, eight sandboxes and 13 picnic tables. Public life centers on the paved piazza.

A finer building scale

Independent buildings with one compact stair each. A mix of simple four-story middles and five-story corners with elevators.

Photorealistic vision of a paved public piazza framed by colorful traditional buildings, with cafés, shops, shade trees, benches and people walking and gathering. — THE PUBLIC PIAZZA
A place to meet.
*A reason to stay.*
Neighborhood shops and cafés open onto a welcoming paved square, with shade, seating and room for everyday life.
Illustrative vision

02 / WALK THROUGH THE IDEA

A neighborhood,
from every angle.

Fly around the proposal in Google Earth, from the wider Carlton landscape to the plaza, gardens and shared streets. Then explore the interactive model at your own pace.

CARLTON IN ITS SETTING

A flight through Google Earth

90 seconds · Silent film

Explore the Carlton courtyard neighborhood concept in Google Earth. The flight visits the public piazza, planted courtyards, 20-foot shared streets and proposed County addition.

Download the video ↓

EXPLORE AT YOUR OWN PACE

Take the controls.

Rotate, zoom and pause anywhere in the design model.

Preview of the interactive Carlton neighborhood model.

Model M19 · 82 buildings · 35 corner elevators · 47 four-story walk-ups

Open full model

03 / THE SITE & THE BUILDINGS

One connected
neighborhood.

The study includes the four school-campus parcels and the separate County parking parcel to the west. Existing public streets connect the parts; proposed woonerfs complete the local network.

Measured concept plan: nine courtyard blocks and a public plaza, with the County parking addition outlined in rust and the whole study boundary dotted. — Proposed buildingsResident plantingCounty addition

At a glance

School-campus parcels: 12.17 acres
Proposed County addition: 1.25 acres
Total GIS-measured study area: 13.43 acres
Four-story buildings: 47
Five-story corner / end buildings: 35
Building ground coverage: 5.36 acres
Gross enclosed floor area: ~1.07m sq ft
Ground-floor commercial allowance: ~31,000 sq ft
Public plaza: ~23,700 sq ft
Shared resident courtyards: 9

Gross floor area includes walls and shared space. Commercial areas are study reservations at intersections; tenants and demand are not established.

Site areas are measured from Carlton County GIS parcel geometry retrieved October 11, 2026; rounded components may not sum exactly. These are approximate planning measurements, not a boundary survey. Existing public rights-of-way are not added to the 13.43 acres.

04 / HOMES FOR EVERY CHAPTER

Half the homes.
Room for a family.

A 1,000 sq ft average apartment, with half of all homes offering three or four bedrooms. Smaller one- and two-bedroom homes balance the mix.

PRELIMINARY HOUSING ESTIMATE

~830homes

Working range: ~780–880 homes

An area-based planning estimate, not a count of fitted apartment plans. The mix below is an illustrative allocation of the rounded 830-home scenario.

415three- and four-bedroom homes
in the illustrative mix

A family-sized housing mix

1,000 sq ft average

30%20%40%10%

Illustrative apartment mix for 830 homes
Home type	Size	Share	Homes
1 bedroom	600 sq ft	30%	249
2 bedrooms	850 sq ft	20%	166
3 bedrooms	1,200 sq ft	40%	332
4 bedrooms	1,700 sq ft	10%	83
Total / average	1,000 sq ft	100%	830

The 40% three-bedroom / 10% four-bedroom split and the smaller-home sizes are provisional study assumptions. Half of all homes remain three- or four-bedroom homes.

How the preliminary count is calculated

From buildings to apartments

Start with 1,067,711 sq ft of modeled enclosed floor area, adjusted for bays, outdoor loggias and ground-level passages.
Subtract 31,032 sq ft reserved for corner commercial uses, leaving 1,036,679 sq ft of potential gross residential space.
Allow 20% for all stairs, elevator shafts, shared circulation, walls and building services. The remaining 829,344 sq ft, divided by 1,000 sq ft per apartment, gives about 829 homes—presented as ~830.

The common-space allowance includes the modeled cores; they are not deducted twice. No extra homes are assumed in dormers, attics, basements or roofs. Detailed plans may change the efficiency, apartment mix and total.

Test the area allowance

Apartment area as a share of residential gross area 80%

75% · more shared space85% · less shared space

~830 homes

Sensitivity only. This changes the area-based estimate, not the design or the illustrative bedroom mix above.

KEEP EXPLORING

See Carlton
in its setting.

Continue in Google Earth Pro to see the neighborhood in its real geographic setting. Download the complete M19 model with its 90-second camera tour.

Download the 90-second Earth tour

KMZ · 19.8 MB · Ground-level M19 model included · E02 correction. Plays in Google Earth Pro on a computer; video export is a separate step.

Play the tour & export a video

Open the downloaded KMZ in Google Earth Pro and uncheck all older Carlton layers.
Expand Carlton M19 — E02 ground-level tour in Places. Double-click PLAY — Carlton neighborhood fly-through (90 sec).
To make a video later, stop playback and use Tools → Movie Maker. Choose the saved tour as the recording source, select the available video format and resolution, and export.

Keep Google Earth and imagery credits visible in the finished video.

Download the instructions ↓

Download the ground-level M19 model ↓
Earth tour on Google Drive ↗

A WORKING CONCEPT

A vision to test,
refine and build on.

This proposal assumes replacement of the school, inclusion of the separately controlled County parking parcel, and relocation of Public Works functions to create the plaza. Land availability and retained uses still need confirmation.

Housing yield, single-stair arrangements, accessibility, emergency access, utilities, wetland constraints and winter operations require further design and review. The northern wetland area remains a review hold in this version.

Prepared by Courtyard Urbanist for discussion. This is an independent concept, not an adopted Carlton County or City of Carlton plan.

A new chapter
for the Carlton
school site.