Work starts on Zenith condos in Mpls.

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - 2:32 PM CDT Tuesday, March 27, 2007
by Carissa Wyant
Staff Writer

The developers of the Zenith Condominiums project have broken ground on the site in the downtown Minneapolis Mill district, and signed the University of Minnesota Physicians Clinic as a tenant.

According to a press release from Sherman Associates, demolition was recently completed at the site located new Guthrie Theatre, and environmental cleanup of the area is underway. The first phase of the new development will have 65 units designed by Minneapolis-based architect Elness Swenson Graham Architects. More than 40 percent of the units have been sold, the developers said in a press release.

The University of Minnesota Physicians Clinic has also agreed to lease the first floor of the project. According to information provided in the release, the new clinic will offer unique "concierge style" environment. University of Minnesota Physicians is a division of Fairview Hospitals. This will be its first downtown site.

Downtown Whole Foods-condo project clears hurdle

Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal - August 15, 2006
by John Vomhof Jr.
Staff Writer

A $200 million downtown Minneapolis condo project that includes a Whole Foods Market is moving forward.

The Minneapolis Planning Commission on Monday unanimously approved Don Milliken's plans for a 33-story, 290-unit condo project on the Jaguar dealership site at Washington and Hennepin Avenues.

Milliken is a well-known developer from the Pacific Northwest who developed a similar condo project with a Whole Foods in Seattle.

Milliken plans to break ground on his Minneapolis project, called Two Twenty Two, next spring when the Jaguar dealership relocates. Construction will take a little more than two years, with the project expected to open in summer 2009.

The project's key features include the 75,000-square-foot Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI), an additional 7,500 to 8,000 square feet of retail and more than an acre of green space located 30 feet above street. The plans also call for three levels of underground parking for tenants, separate from the Whole Foods parking lot.

Milliken expects condo sales to start next May, once construction is already underway. Units will likely run from $300,000 to $1 million, with three penthouses going for $2 million each.

"They're going to be high-end, well-finished, well-designed," he said.

Milliken said he is not worried about the number of condo projects planned for the Twin Cities area and believes his project will stand out among the rest because it includes a supermarket.

"We are very confident in what we are selling," he said. "We think the quality of our site is second to none."

While Two Twenty Two is Milliken's only development currently underway in the Twin Cities, he said he would like to do more projects here in the future.

"It makes sense as we get to know the market well, to capitalize on that knowledge and to do something else."

Hot Property: Grand Central Lofts

Published May 2, 2005

Grand Central Lofts

4747 Central Av. NE.

Columbia Heights

Square feet: 523,000 (all phases)

Units: 88 (Phase I)

Type: Loft Condominiums (67 units), townhouses (21)

Cost: $62 million

Details: When the Kmart store in Columbia Heights closed in 2002 as part of that retailer's bankruptcy procedure, city officials decided that rather than try to find another "big box" to occupy the 12-acre parcel, they would join the trend of loft-condominium building in inner-ring Twin Cities suburbs.

The redevelopment of the Central Avenue NE. site into a mix of housing and retail reached a milestone last week when the Grand Central Lofts opened a model home in the project's still-uncompleted Phase One building.

Developer New Heights, an entity controlled by Columbia Heights-based builder Bruce Nedegaard, has set a Sept. 1 completion date for the 67-unit first building, one of three planned condominium structures at the Grand Central Lofts site at 4747 Central Av. NE., about a half-mile south of the intersection of Central and Interstate Hwy. 694.

Also under construction are the first of 21 townhouses. All told, the redevelopment will have 230 housing units and a minimum of 10,000 square feet of retail space. General contractor for the Grand Central Lofts is Frana & Sons; ESG Architects did the design work.

Like other such projects in St. Louis Park, Brooklyn Park and elsewhere, the target audience is a combination of aging locals who want to trade in their single-family homes for something that requires less upkeep and younger first-time home buyers who are looking for a loft lifestyle but can't afford property in the downtown areas.

Prices start at $189,000. Adding to the pitch is an effort to build a sense of community: The project will include a public swimming pool and community center aimed at helping to revitalize Central Avenue's role as "Main Street" for the suburb. Another project along those lines is a redevelopment effort at 39th and Central, where the city is attempting to renew the east side of the street.

Hot Property: Steele Flats in Minneapolis

Published March 28, 2005

Steele Flats
4500 Chicago Av. S.
Minneapolis

Cost: $6 million

Units: 32

Residential square footage: 55,000

Type: Condominium

Owner and developer: Master Development Group

Details: Master Development Group, already busy in and around Minneapolis with several condominium projects, said it has completed the land purchases for its next two efforts and will begin marketing the first of the pair in early April.

The Steele Flats at 45th St. and Chicago Av. in the Field Regina Northrop neighborhood of south Minneapolis are ready to begin construction. Charlie Nestor, Master's director of real estate development, said the 55,000-square-foot building will house 32 condo units ranging from 800 to 1,400 square feet.

Price ranges on the units -- all of which come with underground parking -- will be from $175,000 to $300,000.

A second south Minneapolis project is not as far along. Planned for the intersection of 46th St. and 46th Av. S. near the Ford Parkway Bridge, the still-unnamed project is set to have 20 condominium units in the $250,000-to-$450,000 range, Nestor said.

"We probably won't begin marketing on that one until later on in the summer," he said.

Master Development has gained attention in recent months for its successful efforts to convert the former Brookside School along Hwy. 100 in St. Louis Park to housing. The firm also has several other urban residential developments in its portfolio, including the Arts Quarter at 28th St. and Nicollet Av.; the Greenleaf at Nicollet and Franklin avenues; Hiawatha Square at 2803 E. 38th St.; and the Fulton Lofts at W. 50th St. and Xerxes Av.

On the commercial real estate side, Master is redeveloping the Jackson Building near the intersection of Central Av. and Broadway St. in northeast Minneapolis into a mixed-use venue with office-retail space and artists' studios.

"We look to build in neighborhoods that are already neighborhoods," Nestor said. "They might be on the fringe when it comes to what's considered trendy. They're the kind of places that are going on the upside but don't have a lot of development going on yet. At 45th and Chicago, for instance, there has been no new construction for 60 years."

Project manager Jason Wittwer said the Steele Flats project will incorporate the brick-and-stucco look of the surrounding houses, most of which were built in the 1920s.

"We see it as a complement to some of the attractions of this neighborhood, like the Parkway Theater and the nice commercial node there with its restaurants and coffee shops," he said.

Master Development is serving as its own general contractor on the project. Tushie Montgomery is the architect.

Whitney Hotel selling heirlooms

Sarah McKenzie
Staff reporter

Developers planning to build condominiums in the former Whitney Hotel in Minneapolis are organizing an auction to sell the hotel's heirloom pieces, including antique cappuccino makers and marble-top dressers.

Whitney Partners LLC, a development group led by Ned Abdul, owner of Minneapolis-based Swervo Development, plan to rehab the former 96-room riverside hotel to make way for 40 to 60 new condo units, said Michael Roess, a Coldwell Banker Burnet real estate broker working on the $30 million project.

Soderholm Commission Co. of Maple Plain is holding the auction for the hotel pieces, which Roess said are estimated to be worth $200,000 to $400,000.

Other items to be auctioned off include furniture, two grand pianos, bar stools, catering equipment and wine racks.

Whitney Partners took on ownership of the old hotel earlier this year after a previous developer, Chicago-based Standard Mills Ltd. failed to pay off a debt on the hotel.

The Whitney Hotel at 150 Portland Ave. is 125 years old.

The developers plan to start marketing the condos within the next few weeks. Prices are expected to range between $300,000 and $4.5 million for a 4,000-square-foot penthouse.

The architect on the project is Minneapolis-based Tanek Inc.

Swervo Development is behind several other condo conversions in downtown Minneapolis, including The Lenox, the American Trio Lofts, and the Sexton building in Elliot Park. In the Warehouse District, Swervo repositioned the Architectural Antiques building at 607 Washington Ave. N. for high-end lofts.

Retro metro: New condo buildings adhering to old architecural styles

Retro metro: New condo buildings adhering to old architecural styles
Linda Mack
Star Tribune
Published November 14, 2004

Advice to architects building new condos in a Minneapolis neighborhood:

Stick to the tried and true -- fake brick, wrought-iron fencing, gable roofs, turrets that recall a long-ago era.

At least that's what a chorus of first-rank architects and developers advise after running the gantlet of neighborhood and city approvals.

"It would be so much easier and so tempting to do that," said Tom Meyer of Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle.

The firm's all-glass design for Parc Centrale, a 21-story "Vancouver-style" residential tower in Loring Park, went down in flames this fall after a slew of neighbors opposed the height. It has redesigned the project as a six-story building inspired by the nearby classical Loring Park Office Building.

Meanwhile, on downtown's southern edge, the tradition-inspired Grant Park rises from its base of turreted brick townhouses to its limestone crown. A gazebo and white picket fences plucked straight from Disneyland grace its side yard.

With such backward-looking design dominating the landscape, inquiring minds want to know: Is Minneapolis ready for modernism?

Two big cultural projects -- Jean Nouvel's Guthrie Theater and Jacques Herzog's Walker Art Center addition -- certainly will elevate the profile of contemporary architecture in Minneapolis when they open. But just below that level is a safer and much more banal landscape.

"We've been really timid," said Michael Lander of the Lander Group, who has been a leader in such New Urbanist developments as Excelsior and Grand in St. Louis Park and the North Quadrant in St. Paul.

There are reasons for the timidity, many developers and architects agree. The housing market is conservative by nature. That and a city approval process that favors neighborhood input tend to dampen edgier design.

"How hard is it to get this new stuff approved?" asked developer Chuck Leer, who's worked in the city's North Loop. "Some of us won't even go down that road because we know how hard it is."

A look at some current proposals highlights the hazards.

A slow process

Architect James Dayton, who came to Minneapolis eight years ago from Frank Gehry's office in California, wanted to design a new loft building that was simple, direct and industrial-looking. After renovating a classic brick warehouse on N. 3rd Street into the Bookmen Lofts, he designed an edgier new eight-story building across the street. His Bookmen Stacks, with exposed concrete and glass and a zinc-clad base, is going up now, but the process leading to construction was neither quick nor easy.

The project was not in a historic district but, Dayton said, city planning staff suggested using brick and wrought iron. "They literally asked, 'Why can't you just use normal materials?' " he said.

Last month the third phase of the project, a modernist one-story restaurant in the middle of the block, was approved. The painstaking negotiations took two years.

Developer Kit Richardson, who also has been active in the North Loop, envies the straightforward industrial look of Dayton's Bookmen Stacks. He proposed exposing the concrete structure of the new 710 Lofts on N 4th St., but city planners insisted brick be used on the main facades.

"It looks like a historic replica," Richardson said. "I would have liked it to be all concrete and glass. I just think it's too bad it's not honestly expressed."

Did he consider appealing?

"When you contest, there's no guarantee that you'll win, and you aren't sure how much time it will take. We had people waiting to move in," he said.

Neighbors object

It's perhaps not surprising that neighbors shot down Parc Centrale, the proposed 21-story tower on a site in Loring Park that's zoned for six stories.

Minneapolis City Council member Lisa Goodman, who represents the area, said the project's height was the problem, not its contemporary look.

But developer Clark Gassen and architect David Graham of Elness Swenson Graham ran into a similar firestorm on the Edgewater project on the corner of E. Calhoun Parkway and W. Lake Street, the current site of a four-story 1920s brick apartment building. Their proposed contemporary design, a six-story glass-and-Kasota-stone condo, is hardly cutting-edge.

To address neighbors' concerns that the building was "a glass box," Graham revised the original design to shrink the amount of glass and include more stone.

Although the City Planning Commission overwhelmingly approved the project as appropriate for the zoning and location on a busy traffic corridor, neighbors appealed to the City Council.

Vicki Fraher, one of the neighbors, said both the height and the design are objectionable.

"The concern is that the homes on that block are very, very traditional, so it's out of context," she said in a phone interview.

The project squeaked by the Zoning and Planning Committee on a 3-to-3 vote, sending it onto the full Minneapolis City Council, which approved the project 6 to 5. Graham and Fraher agreed on one thing: The process was "excruciating."

"You don't know what anyone really thinks until you get to the meeting," said Graham. "It would have been a lot easier if we had rolled over and done a Tudor Revival with a turret."

On the glassy side

A handful of developers and architects have taken a more modern tack and lived to tell about it.

Architect Julie Snow's designs for the Humboldt Lofts, which combine glass, rusty steel and brick, and the straightforward Park Avenue Lofts in the Minneapolis Mills District have managed to be thoroughly modern and win approval in a historic district.

Skyscape, at 10th St. and Portland Av., kitty-corner from Grant Park, will feature a 26-story rectilinear glass and stone tower rising from a brick base. Chicago architect Bob Bistry said the approval process went smoothly because the Elliott Park Neighborhood Association knew what they wanted.

"They realized that density and mixed-use were good," he said. The neighborhood and city did suggest adding more precast so it wasn't all glass, he added.

South of Grant Park, the Elliot Park neighborhood and the city approved a 21-story tower of glass, steel and metal or precast by architects Horty Elving.

"Some people felt it should not be contemporary," said architect Tom Horty. "We thought there was a market for it." The architects, who are also the developers, are pursuing financing.

And in history-rich northeast Minneapolis, five neighborhoods have applauded a development that features two all-glass midrise buildings on the site of the Eastgate Shopping Center. The blue glass cubes are designed by the Toronto firm Architects Alliance, which also has designed the all-glass Reflections towers in Bloomington near the Mall of America, hands-down the most forward-looking of current designs in the metro area.

"I think it's going to be a real signature development that will bring this neighborhood into the 21st century," said P. Victor Grambsch, chair of the neighborhood task force.

In the heart of downtown, the tallest and most modern of tower designs is winning rave reviews. Janis LaDouceur's soaring glass and stone tower proposed for 10th St. and Nicollet Mall has been well-received, said the City Council's Goodman, who represents that part of downtown.

It's an encouraging sign for those who worry that Minneapolis is stuck in throwback-land.

"We're coming into a new era in Minneapolis, and I hope we're not hostages to the past," said Chuck Leer, who developed the 801 Washington and 700 N.Washington Lofts. "Respect for the past means to understand it and not destroy it and at the same time express our own voice."

Tom Meyer echoes those thoughts.

"People are drawn to tradition. The Hill House is in their imagination. Then you have the real world of how things get built now, with vinyl-clad windows and stucco over Styrofoam. So there's this fundamental gap between building practices and materials and the fantasies that people have about where they want to live."

James Dayton put it succinctly: "It's very important that we are honest to our time."