Help Save the John Cook House

948 18th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN

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TODAY - Sign up for our email updates
TODAY - Write to: Elliott Payne, City Council - elliott.payne@minneapolismn.gov
TODAY - Write to the rest of our City Council (click)
April 27, 6pm - Join us at Recovery Bike Shop Monday evening for a neighborhood meeting. We will talk updates and strategy, but this will be an informal gathering. We'll get pizza (or something)!

John Cook House in the news:
Star Tribune: Public Outcry
The Northeaster: Demolition Denied...for now

The short version

The John Cook House (948 18th Ave NE) is a Minneapolis Historic Landmark (1889). It was a home to the the Colberg family as recently as 2014. In 2015, a couple of neighbors bought the house and began improvements which included a new roof.

Abu Jibril bought the house in 2019 for $240,000 with the intention of tearing it down and making a parking lot for his development across the alley. Prior to the purchase, Mr Jibril was informed (by City Council member Keven Reich) that the city would not allow the house to be demolished.

Undaunted, Mr Jibril simply left the house open to the elements and vandals. After seven years, Mr Jibril decided that he had caused enough damage to the house that the city council was likely to grant a demolition waiver.

That’s when we found out what was going on.

The Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission turned down his demolition application. Mr Jibril appealed.

In Nov 2025, because of the neighborhood uproar, Mr Jibril agreed to withdraw his demolition application. In exchange, Mr Jibril was given six months without fees or fines in order to sell the house.

Mr Jibril did not make an earnest attempt to sell the property. He waited four months before listing the house for sale and gave it a list price of $245k, more than the price he paid in 2019.

In April of 2025, we made Mr Jibril an offer based on market value and our estimates of the repair costs. The offer was declined.

There were no other offers.

On April 19, 2026, I spoke to Mr Jibril on the phone. He said he would except nothing less $240k, the amount he paid in 2019, even though the house has suffered tremendously since he bought it. I asked him what he planned to do if the City Council denied his demolition application. Would he go on paying $50k+ per year in fines until someone came along to offer him $240k? He said he would restore the house himself and move into it with his family. I offered to help him do this.

This is the same day we toured the house with our contractor.

While we wait for the City Council to hear Mr Jibril’s second application to demolish the house, we are refining our plan to purchase, restore, and preserve the house. We have met with contractors. We are hosting public meetings with our neighbors. We are taking donations and investments. We have received many offers of help from professionals and amateurs. And we are writing to City Council to let them know we want our history protected from nefarious developers.

We believe the John Cook House is worth saving. Our research suggests that it can be saved. And we believe that we are the ones that can do it.

If you would like to help, please get in touch. Of course we need money, but we also need labor. We need people to share our story. We need relevant AND irrelevant skills. We are throwing a benefit concert for the house because someone knows a bunch of bands. Who do you know? What can you do? Let us know and let’s figure it out!

We have made an offer!

April 16, 2026

We have won some extra time!

Congratulations, everyone! And thank you for the rapid action and all of the emails to City Council. We actually got some very encouraging emails back. The emails combined with our meeting last Monday made Ward 1 City Council member Elliott Payne’s work on our behalf much easier, and the Business, Housing, & Zoning Committee was able to vote to postpone the demolition application for one more Council cycle.

Our next deadline is now the BHZ Committee meeting on April 28. This is a real chance to get some work done.

Our next action item is negotiation for property acquisition. We have made an offer and we are waiting to hear back from the developer. The developer's motivations are...
- As much money as possible (demolition also = $$$)
- Good PR. Developers have to come back to City Council frequently for many projects. They do not want to make the City Council mad.
- As few costs as possible. The city’s only real tools for protecting historic properties are fees and fines. And the process seems to be very political (whim of the Council). Property confiscation through eminent domain is extremely unusual and politically costly. So the developer may decide it is actually worth it to endure the fines and try to wait us out. The house will fall down at some point.

We need an offer that compels the developer to sell. And we need a plan that keeps us from losing our shirts.

Plan A is turning the John Cook House back into a house (to sell, to rent, to AirBnB). This is the most straightforward plan and the simplest spreadsheet and projections to build. Once we finalize a purchase and can begin stabilizing the house, we will get back to the other ideas on the table (neighborhood event venue, museum, artist colony, etc.). If that is enough for you and you are okay with letting the Cook House’s eventual purpose remain ambiguous for now, please consider being involved and even pledging some funds.

That said, we will not proceed with a purchase unless we think our plan is financially viable.

We are working on the business plan for this model which will be largely applicable to whatever model we eventually adopt, but will tell us that we at least have a viable Plan A.

We are reaching out to our network and connecting with resources and advisors (LegalCORPS, Elevate Hennepin, Mpls Developer Technical Assistance Program, and others).

We are also researching the public/private ownership model. We talked on Monday about connecting with groups like Rethos and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) as public partners or the potential for forming our own 501c3. We’ve made contact with Rethos and we’re waiting to hear back from NARI. If you have leads on other organizations that partner on historic property restoration or neighborhood development, let us know.

We are reaching out to contractors now to shore up our estimates and spreadsheets. This will inform our negotiations. (Are you a real estate professional? Have any contractors you recommend? Keep an eye out for another email about this.)

In the meantime, we have some money committed and we have made an initial offer (with contingencies that will get us out in case our estimates prove insurmountable).

What we know now is that the developer has received exactly zero other offers over the last six months. This is good because it tells everyone that he has overpriced the property. It is also bad because it means we’re the cavalry and the infantry. We’re king and country. We’re the last chance the John Cook House has and it’s still the 11th hour.

If you want to prepare for Monday's meeting, ask yourself…
-What do you want out of this project?
-What are you willing and able to contribute?
-What are your concerns? How could these be addressed?

Thank everyone and see you soon.

Keep reading for our origin story!

The historic John Cook House has stood at the corner of 18th and Tyler since Minneapolis’ sidewalks were made of pine planks. Today it is in the hands of a developer who is intentionally demolishing it with neglect. He wants a parking lot.

Years of open windows and vandals has caused tremendous damage to a house registered as a historic landmark.

They aren’t even mowing the lawn.

The current owner of the John Cook house is paving a path for unscrupulous developers to mine our history for profit. This property must be removed from the hands of the developer.

After more than 20 years of being vacant, it’s time we write the next chapter of the Cook House together.

We held our first Coffee (Outside) in front of 948 NE 18th Ave on Sept 21 to call attention to the destructive actions of this developer. We began attending the city hearings where the owner appealed to have the historic designation removed.

We spoke at the city council hearings. We wrote letters. We held meetings.

We began assembling a team and two months later we’re making a plan to acquire and restore the Cook House ourselves.

So this is our call for help. We need you. We need your hammers and nails. We need your checkbooks too. The John Cook House needs you. Northeast Minneapolis needs you. Help us take a stand against this corruption. Help us save a piece of our history.

What’s so great about the John Cook House?

It was built in 1889, just a few decades after Minneapolis was formed. For more than a hundred years this duplex was home to the workers and immigrants who built Northeast Minneapolis: the mill workers, the railroad employees, the shop staff. Their stories are the stories of our city.

John Cook was a developer who built a handful of Minneapolis houses back when the streets were dirt and most people walked.

John Cook built in the Queen Anne style, a rarity in Minneapolis and this house is one of just a few examples left.

More than anything, the John Cook House is a neighborhood landmark. It’s the house everyone knows, and many of us have dreamed of seeing it restored to its former glory.

It is time.

How are we going to do this? Turns out, we’re a pretty capable group, y’all. We are contractors and historians and content generators and materials manufacturers and city officials. And we all know a ton of people. But most of all, we are neighbors who care about our community. What we don’t know, we’re gonna figure out.

So if you want to be a part of this story, if you want to hang out with passionate do-gooders, if you want to help save the John Cook House, get in touch. We are hosting regular meetings. We are looking for partners. We need money too.

Most of all, stay tuned. Follow our story. Share it with your friends. We want to see our history celebrated.

This house needs us. We are Northeast.