Parker Kohl Funeral Home in Faribault Hoping to Move North

The present Parker Kohl Funeral Home in Faribault is planned to become a senior assisted-living facility.

Tuesday night the Faribault City Council approved a variance and conditional use permit to allow the conversion to take place. The CUP calls for a 16-unit residential care facility in a medium-density residential district.

I spoke with Parker Kohl co-owner Steve Kohl on Wednesday afternoon and he said if everything goes according to plan then next year at this time they should be in their new funeral home facility. He said they would simply like more space and want to add a crematory.

Presently the Faribault funeral home has 9,500 square feet on three levels and the plan would have a facility of more than 10,000 square feet on one level.

The new site is between the Faribault Garden Center and Crossroads Professional Building. The entrance would presumably be off 17th Street Northwest. Highway 21 also goes by the proposed site.

After Tuesday's City Council approval, Kohl says they will move forward with their building plans and hope to begin construction late this summer or early this fall. He added if everything goes well then they would open either late spring or early summer 2017.

The Parker Kohl Funeral Home has been at its present location since the 1930s. The lot where the facility sits used to be the site of the home of Bishop Whipple's wife.

Steve and John Kohl are co-owners of the Parker Kohl Funeral Home in Faribault, McRaith Funeral Home in Waseca and Arnoldt-McRaith Funeral Home and Crematory in Janesville.

Steve and John's grandfather, Edward Kohl, purchased the McCarthy Funeral Home in 1942. Edward's son James then entered and eventually took over the business and now his sons are the co-owners.

Steve says they are excited to bring a more spacious modern facility to Faribault without losing the personal touch they have provided generations of residents in the area.