Opus nearly ready to break ground on apartment tower
Project site sells to development entity for $8.25M
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Minnetonka-based Opus Development Corp. is close to breaking ground on its 26-story, 250-unit Nicollet Residences luxury apartment building in downtown Minneapolis, if a newly filed Certificate of Real Estate Value is any indication.
Opus recently sold the project’s four downtown parcels – at 423, 427 and 415 Nicollet Mall and 426 Marquette Ave. – to an affiliated development entity called Nicollet Residences LLC, according to a CRV submitted near the end of the business day Friday in Hennepin County.
The $8.25 million transaction, nearly twice the present $4.7 million assessed value of the parcels, is the type of move that occurs place when a developer has its financial ducks in a row and is preparing to start construction.
“We’re very close to kicking some stuff up,” Dave Menke, senior vice president and general manager with Opus, said Monday. Besides the apartments, the building will have retail on its first two floors and will be skyway accessible.
Menke declined to comment on the total project budget or the mix of equity and debt in the project financing. He said that a “large regional bank” was providing financing for the project, which he said would be owned by “Opus and Opus affiliates.”
But to drive the point home Monday, Rachel Contracting had a one-story-high excavator parked in the middle of the parking lot where Nicollet Residences is expected to rise.
Don Rachel, CEO of St. Michael-based Rachel, said he expects his company will start tearing up the parking lot soon for Opus, though he did not know the exact timetable. Three of the parcels are on a parking lot.
There are no building permits on file yet with the city of Minneapolis.
Last month, Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Village Green announced it was breaking ground on its redevelopmentof the Soo Line Building 101 Fifth St. S., kitty corner from the Nicollet Residences site. Village Green is planning 254 “luxury” apartments in the building.
On the edge of downtown, Chicago-based Magellan Development Group LLC has also started work on a 36-story, 354-unit, amenity-laden apartment tower at 1368 LaSalle Ave.
When asked when the boom might end, Menke said, “I think the right type of apartments will always do well.”
Menke said that means “well-conceived, well-built projects.”