Northeast - General Topics

[MNdible]

This little project backed up to the railroad tracks near Broadway and Central is going in front of the planning commission. In spite of the plans suggesting that it might be six floors tall, it looks like it's really only four.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download ... evised.pdf

My question for anybody who knows more about this than I do is how are they getting away without building an elevator?

[Silophant]

I wonder if only a certain percentage of the actual units need to be ADA accessible, as long as all the common spaces are? Not having an underground garage helps, of course, but I also notice that the shared patio space is on the ground level instead of being part of a top floor setback like I'm more used to seeing in proposals like this.

[twincitizen]

Why does a project of this scale need an electrical transformer? Why in the front yard, right up by the sidewalk (and adjacent home's driveway)? You don't really see that with older apartment buildings of this scale.

Great project, but I wish they were buying the triangle-shaped property to the south too (726 Tyler). That's gonna be tougher to develop on its own and probably remains a shoddy SFH until someone wants to build a 2-4 unit on it.

[Silophant]

Good question. Most newer apartment buildings need three-phase service for the elevator, but that's obviously not the case here. My guess that as an all-electric building, the projected load is enough to trigger the need for a three-phase service even without an elevator (or EV charging, since there's no parking), and they opted to bore in a new underground primary instead of rebuilding the existing single-phase tap along the railroad tracks. Xcel is trying to get away from back-lot overhead lines like that that can't be accessed from public right-of-way.

[MNdible]

I wonder if only a certain percentage of the actual units need to be ADA accessible, as long as all the common spaces are? Not having an underground garage helps, of course, but I also notice that the shared patio space is on the ground level instead of being part of a top floor setback like I'm more used to seeing in proposals like this.

I just hope that nobody living on the fourth floor twists an ankle and has to use crutches. Or has their elderly parents try to visit them. Or, you know, has to move into the building.

[MNdible]

[Is there a reason that this thread isn't pinned?]

[Wezle]

New proposal in in next Monday's Planning Commission for a 5-story 89 unit apartment building at 931 Marshall St across from the Graco campus.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... Report.pdf

[Silophant]

Looks like it's a resubmission of a proposal that was approved back in late 2022 but had the entitlements expire. Hope they can get it off the ground this time.

[Wezle]

Makes me excited to see proposals popping up at all in front of the Planning Commission. Feels like it's been months since there has been anything noteworthy in their meeting agendas. Next Monday's meeting has 3 apartment proposals totaling 177 units of housing.

Perhaps this is overly optimistic, but maybe we've turned the corner and will be back to a steady stream of housing proposals/builds again.

[rhettcarlson]

Good spot. The micro-market of Broadway/Marshall in NE is really solid. The Julia, Frances & Lucille apartments all seeing $3+ psf rents!

[Silophant]

Makes me optimistic that we'll see an actual redevelopment of the Graco campus, assuming it can stay out of the hands of data center developers.

[daveybabymsp]

Makes me optimistic that we'll see an actual redevelopment of the Graco campus, assuming it can stay out of the hands of data center developers.

City Council should preemptively rezone the Graco site to not allow data centers. It would be super unpopular if that huge riverfront site became a data center.

[Silophant]

Agreed, but I suspect they don't want to actually rezone the site away from Production and Processing until there's an actual proposal for it. Hard to imagine who it would be here in 2026, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if someone came in to use at least some of the existing site for manufacturing of some sort.

[HuskyGrad]

https://www.startribune.com/bauhaus-bre ... /601843207

Bauhaus Brewing is closing.

[BikesOnFilm]

Developers are looking to build nine 3 story row houses on a small corner of land across from the Holiday station's car wash.

Rowhouse Minneapolis

Would be neat if it's a success and we see imitations elsewhere throughout the city.

[MNdible]

Yeah, that's a great looking project for that site. Perfect fit.

[The Toader]

I think this project is a good fit for other zoning areas, but this is zoned Transit 30, and we already have a bunch of spots in the rest of the Transit 30 district that won't ever see that sort of density any time soon. With the nearby E line, same block access to the future F line, plus all of the other frequent buses, this is a transit rich spot. The developer told me that the size is too small for something larger. I'd really hate for this to set an example that can undermine higher density zoning if developers aren't willing to get creative with their lot sizes, or merge more lots together. At minimum, this lot should match the adjacent 6 story building.

[BikesOnFilm]

I understand the concern to some extent, and if we were still in 2018 at the height of boom where 10-30 story apartments were getting proposed every six months or so, I would probably lean more in that direction.

Having said that, I also don't think we're in danger of actual good sites for Transit 30 scale development being wasted. There's a lot of great sites sitting vacant around this area that I wouldn't support this project on, and would hope that the Planning Commission would concur. But this isn't a big company asking to waive a six story height requirement to build a one story bank branch (like we've seen attempted), it's the sort of infill development we supposedly wanted the 2040 plan to produce, on a lot that I think we can both acknowledge would not be economical to develop to the Transit 30 minimum of ten stories.

I haven't spoken with the developer, but I imagine if they had the ability to purchase the house and frame store to the north in order to build a larger building, they would have done so. In one of the docs they have on their website, they indicate that they do not have the option to acquire more land. Maybe the frame store property isn't interested in selling, maybe the developers have enough financing to build but not to envelop their neighbors and build a larger property. I don't know, but I certainly am not going to assume they are doing this to specifically undermine the zoning code and encourage others to do so.

I also think asking for a comp plan amendment in order to build something demonstrably of value is far better than the last comp plan amendment this area saw - trying to prevent future apartments from being built next to a very good up zoning project on Van Buren.

I don't think we should always take the posture of "the market is cool, let people build whatever they're willing to and hope it snowballs into development we actually want," but realistically, this is a cool proposal for this particular parcel. We're not wasting a prime corner with a CVS here. Someone could still come along and build a 6 story building on the frame store site in the future. And I want to see more projects like this put nine units on spaces that currently have 0-2 units.

tl;dr, it's nuanced!

[COLSLAW5]

So actually, it looks like this project includes all 3 of the single-family homes on that street which appear to have already been torn down. It looks 700 central apartment building used to own the lot next to the single family homes off 7th St SE and that was sold to this developer as well.

Additionally the same developer has bought and torn down houses on 3 lots on the other side of SE 2nd Ave as well.

Looks like they are based out of Arizona Jeffery Siegel and the taxpayers address is an Arizona Renaissance festival grounds. Actually sounds like he helped start the Minnesota Renaissance festival and reddit makes him sound like a good guy.

[COLSLAW5]

looks like they do have a website with a lay drawing on it as well as a survey where you can tell them you feel like it needs to be denser if you want

https://rowhousempls.com/about