urbanMSP

I just took a trip over to their website too and these are absolutely stunning as I had imagined they would be, I would kill to live here... Now if I could just made less money LOL. That's the only time you'll hear me saying that.

http://a-millartistlofts.com/photos/#finish

A coworker of mine got in there. He's leaving Lowertown for this and what he'll pay will go down substantially. He's utterly giddy after seeing the quality if these.

He's a musician on the side. Finding space that accepts performers making noise is tough.

Maybe I SHOULD minor in music..

Seeing those pictures makes we wish more buildings were built out of brick. I know there's a great difference in material cost between brick and all the different materials that are used today, but a building like this shows that it can be reused a century later and the end result it a new building with incredible character.

I wonder how many of the 4-10 story apartment buildings that are going up now will still be standing in 50 years.

One of Steve Mouzon's tenets in The Original Green is that building materials should be patchable. I think this falls into the "durable" category. http://www.originalgreen.org/foundations/durable/ Brick, stucco, etc are patchable and thus flexible and long-lasting.

Are the several hundred 2.5 story apartment buildings all over the city really in any danger of falling down? Most were built around 1965-1972 and are now nearing 50 years old. I'm not sure any are near extinction. I expect nearly all of them to stand for at least a couple more decades. Granted, we're now dealing with 6 above ground floors instead of two, but does that fact alone necessarily doom all of these new structures? Or is it the above point that many of the 1970s buildings are mainly stucco & brick exteriors, instead of today's metal panels and EIFS? They're both still stick frame, no?

Are those 60s-80s vintage apartment buildings stick frame? I honestly don't know their construction method.

For the most part postwar construction has been stick construction. The property I lived in was built in 1960 and four stories. It is almost 55 years old, it does not seem to be almost falling over in any respect. It could use a new elevator but the parking garage, stairwells and common areas seem to holding up very well. I would bet these places will last as long they are maintained properly.

My 5 story (podium plus 4 floors of apartments) apartment built in 1969 is... man I don't know. It certainly has the noise and vibration dampening of a cheaply built stick building. The parking podium has concrete columns and a cinder block exterior wall, but in the apartments there are what looks like columns on some exterior walls, but none that I've ever seen in any units, so I'm not really sure. I know the ceiling/floor is something that appears to be open web steel joist.

So I'm pretty sure it's just some form of stick construction, and it's still going strong 45 years later.

biz journal article on the alatus tower said that the artist lofts are 70 percent spoken for, first phase opens December first second next July.

All of the century+-old duplexes and houses in Minneapolis are "stick" construction and they use - gasp - *wood* for protection. Stick holds up just fine as long as it's protected properly.

The century old buildings generally used virgin timber, though; much different from the quick-grown lumber we use today.

The century old buildings generally used virgin timber, though; much different from the quick-grown lumber we use today.

Again, as long as it's protected, there's no reason it won't stand for a century. It will settle, the walls won't be square and the floors will slope, just like in old houses. It's not gonna come tumbling down.

I guess I though have clarified my point as bit better. By "still standing" my intent was to highlight the long-term feasibility of the buildings. While Pillsbury A is being redeveloped after 133 years. While many of the 2-3 story buildings that are roughly 50 years old are still standing and very livable, these buildings are typically better suited for demolition than renovation.

It's not that the structure itself is at fault, but because the construction material doesn't offer any value for re-use. Brick gains character over time while wood construction typically only gain character if it is ornate.

A Mill by twincitizen, on Flickr

Sort of related, Schafer Richardson is renovating the pillsbury machine shop which is just east of the A mill in its shadow.

More info: http://www.machineshopmpls.com/

Rather than asking the inverse, I'll ask: which part(s) of the complex will not be occupied by apartments? They seem to be doing work everywhere.

If you look on their website they have a pretty cool overall building map. This place is HUGE!! Anyone have the total apartment count here?

I got to take a tour of this beast last week. It's quite an interesting development, as you would expect. I'm not totally on board with the financing- LIHTC "Artists Lofts" are not something I think we need to be building more of- but it's great to see the buildings being reused for something. Too bad its use will be locked for 30 years...

Anyway, here are links to a couple of imgur albums with mediocre pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/YnHsR#0

https://imgur.com/a/h9aHb

The walls on the red building are really thin.