Affordable Housing : Development News

 
The American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis, home to the largest population of urban American Indian people in Minnesota, continues its ongoing redevelopment into an area of cultural pride and community cohesion with a new proposed mixed-used housing development. The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians recently purchased a 37,367-square-foot parcel on Cedar Avenue, formerly occupied by Amble Hardware. The project will be called Mino-bimaadiziwin, Ojibwe for “living the good life.”
 
The site is “in the heart of the American Indian community” and located adjacent to a Blue Line light-rail station, explains Sam Strong of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. Plans include demolishing the existing, blighted structures, and developing the site into a mixed-use property with approximately 115 units of affordable rental housing. The project would also include a healthcare clinic and a variety of social service programs for tribal members, and the Red Lake Band’s Minneapolis Embassy.
  
The Minneapolis-based Cuningham Group is the designing the project. “While nothing has been finalized on the design side, we are interested in making this a sustainable green project and are looking into our options,” says Strong.
 
About 2,100 Red Lake Band members plus their descendants live in the Twin Cities area. “We are excited to build a strong, healthy affordable housing community for Native Americans in this culturally significant area that will not only benefit our own tribal members, but also the entire Minneapolis community and Seward neighborhood,” said Darrell G. Seki, Sr., Chair of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, in a prepared statement.
 
The Red Lake Band has long been a leader among Indian Tribes and has been at the forefront of numerous initiatives in Indian Country. Mino-bimaadiziwin, a new urban mixed-use project “is important as an investment in our community,” Strong says, “and will help meet the ongoing housing, health and other service needs of our people.”
 
 

In 2006, Community Housing Development Corporation (CHDC), a Minneapolis nonprofit developer and owner of 44 affordable-housing properties, opened a project for homeless veterans. Next to the Minneapolis VA Medical Center in South Minneapolis, CHDC and partners renovated four former officers’ quarters and constructed two new buildings to create 140 affordable units for homeless vets.
 
“That project was incredibly successful,” says Elizabeth Flannery, CEO, CHDC. “Since it opened, we’ve regularly had a waiting list of more than 300 people.”
 
Six years ago, CHDC staff began talking about expanding the 2006 building. “In addition to the waiting list, which needed to be addressed with more affordable housing, we learned that the veterans community is huge and has a range of needs,” Flannery says. “We also learned we need more support services than we originally projected.”
 
“Moreover, when vets finally have housing they can afford, they have the opportunity to think about what’s next, whether that’s counseling, employment, getting their VA entitlements in order or getting treatment,” she adds. In other words, “Housing is critical. Housing is a foundation to everything.”
 
Last week, CHDC and partners broke ground on Veterans East. Located adjacent to the 2006 project, near the Blue Line light-rail station, Veterans East will include 100 affordable units, and will provide on-site support services for health care, case management, life skills, financial management, VA benefits, and education and employment resources.
 
UnitedHealth Group, based in Minnetonka, is the project’s largest private investor; the organization is providing $5.2 million in equity using low-income housing tax credits approved by the State of Minnesota. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, which finances affordable housing, is providing $7.7 million in deferred loan funds. Additional funding comes from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, Hennepin County, affiliates of CHDC, and $290,000 in energy and sales tax rebates.
 
Eligible veterans—those who have experienced chronic homelessness—will pay 30 percent of their income toward rent. When completed in Summer 2017, Veterans East will provide permanent supportive housing for veterans struggling with homelessness.
 
The five-story, energy-efficient building, designed by LHB Architects, will also have a community room with a fireplace, a kitchenette and laundry facilities. In addition to its transit-friendly location near the VA Hospital, Veterans East will be adjacent to Minnehaha Park, and near Lake Nokomis and other area amenities.
 
Since January 2015, Minnesota has kept a registry of homeless veterans to help identify opportunities for housing and other services. So far, 600 vets have been housed, but many more remain homeless. “Once vets get housing they can get work,” Flannery says.
 

The Big Picture Project (BPP), a public-private partnership established to ensure and strengthen affordable housing along the Green Line, has just released a progress report showing it's already exceeded the halfway mark for its 10-year goals.
Since 2011, when the collaboration began:

·         3,573 units of affordable housing have been built or preserved—80% of Big Picture Project's 10-year goal.
·         968 lower income families have benefited from resources that help them stay in their homes—61% of the 10-year goal.
·         Of the 6,388 new housing units built along the Green Line, 1,269 (20%) are designated affordable.
·         More than $4.2 billion has been invested in residential and commercial development (not including the new stadiums) along the existing Green Line—more than half-way to the projected goal of $7 billion worth of development over 30 years.

“Five years ago, we were uncertain that our collective resources could meet the Big Picture's 'stretch' goal of creating and preserving 4,500 affordable housing units along the Green Line by 2020," says Russ Stark, St. Paul City Council and BPP member. "But we were able to meet that goal—years ahead of schedule—by focusing attention and resources on the need for affordable housing as part of new development along the Central Corridor."

To ensure people with low incomes benefit from access to light rail transportation by finding affordable housing nearby, the Big Picture Project originally set out three objectives along the Central Corridor:

·         Invest in the production and preservation of long-term affordable housing;
·         Stabilize the neighborhood and invest in activities that help low-income people stay in their homes and benefit from the new transit opportunity;
·         Strengthen families’ stability and quality of life through coordinated investments in housing, transportation, and access to jobs and education.
 
“The Big Picture Project has benefited stakeholders along the Corridor precisely because it looked at the big picture," says James Lehnhoff, vice president of housing development at Aeon and a BPP member. "The project recognized the vital interconnections between people, transit, employment, housing and amenities. As an affordable housing developer and owner, we appreciate this incredible interconnectivity because it has the ability to provide new or expanded opportunities for our residents.”

While the Big Picture's first five years have produced impressive results, the group's work will continue with a focus on highlighting successful examples of mixed-income housing—such as 2700 University, a project by Indiana-based private developer Flaherty and Collins—and addressing challenges faced by low income renters who are having a harder time maintaining and finding quality affordable housing. Residents with no financial buffers to absorb housing cost increases are often the first to feel the pressures of displacement. As the market potential of the Central Corridor increases, the collaboration wants to ensure that the most vulnerable members of the community don't get pushed aside.  If they want to stay in their community, they have good options.

"This is the next phase of the Big Picture's work," says Gretchen Nicholls, program officer at Twin Cities LISC and the project's coordinator. "We'll keep up the pace of affordable housing solutions, and share what we've learned with other emerging transit corridors as the region-wide system is built out. We're encouraged by the amazing progress we've made, and we'll continue striving toward an equitable economy—one in which everyone can participate and prosper."

Starting this July, the Big Picture Project will host a series of convenings focusing on promising solutions and innovative strategies to cultivate communities of opportunity along our regional transit corridors.
 

 
 

Since Geoffrey Warner and his firm, Alchemy Architects in St. Paul, debuted the weeHouse in 2003, the modular prefabricated housing system, which optimizes many elements of the traditional design-build process, has become a Dwell darling and a hit on the tiny-house circuit. The components of the weeHouse have also been combined and stacked in myriad combinations for clients from Pennsylvania to Marfa, Texas.
 
Now, Alchemy is premiering another prototype sure to transform modern living. On May 19, at Mia’s Third Thursday: Art of Sustainability, the lightHouse debuts. In an article on the Mia website, lightHouse is described as “a new kind of urban hotel and the next evolution of sustainable living.” Warner goes on to explain that lightHouse fulfills the firm’s desire to “do something between a tent and a house that wasn’t a travel trailer.”
 
It’s basically a shipping container with a door and windows, insulation, and solar panels, in-floor heating and filtered wastewater systems installed so the lightHouse could exist off the grid. That means it could be mobile, as well—and comfortable. “This will expand the idea of what you can do with limited space—sustainable doesn’t mean it can’t be comfortable,” Warner told Mia. “By inserting a room like this into the urban fabric, places both celebrated and ignored, you can start to talk about living in the city as an interaction with the urban environment.”
 
The 300-square-foot unit could also be used as an accessory dwelling unit or ADU, but with caveats: In the Twin Cities, regulations stipulate that any sleeping quarters must have a foundation and sewer/water connections. Warner is currently discussing with officials how lightHouse could fulfill pressing needs for ADUs  to increase density, sustainability and the shortage in affordable housing throughout the Twin Cities.
 

“What is making the North Loop exciting and a gravitational point within Minneapolis?” asks Chris Palkowitsch, an Urban Land Institute (ULI) Minnesota Young Leadership Group co-chair for the March 3 event #MSPswagger – Building a Talent Powerhouse.
 
“Why has Lowertown in St. Paul been named the best hipster neighborhood? And what’s the next area? Midway in St. Paul?” he continues. “What steps can be taken from successful areas of the city to create the next up and coming community; to grow a great urban environment for people to live—young, old and families alike.”
 
The answers, hope the organizers of #MSPswagger – Building a Talent Powerhouse, will be tossed into the conversation, put on the table, shared and discussed during the afternoon event at Vandalia Tower in the Creative Enterprise Zone of St. Paul —and over beers at Lake Monster Brewing next door.
 
Created in collaboration with Greater MSP, and to help boost its Make It. MSP initiative to attract and retain new talent to the area, #MSPswagger boldly wishes to assert that—despite our characteristic reluctance to brag—there’s a lot to boast about in our twin towns. “We really want the event to be a conversation, a dialogue,” Palkowitsch says. “We want to hear what creates MSP swagger. Let’s be proud of what we have.”
 
ULI is a nonprofit organization focusing on land use and development, so the discussion will be through a professional real estate lens—with an eye also on the power of placemaking. In other words, there’s more to this topic than The North, a conceptual and branding idea about MSP identity proposed by Eric Dayton that went viral last year. “The idea of The North is a bit of swagger, particularly in the branding,” Palkowitsch says.
 
“It’s about being proud of our successful and clean cities, our lakes and open space, our arts and culture, our great neighborhoods,” he continues. “Our event isn’t building on the ideas of The North so much as functioning as an additive by looking at issues of job creation and retention from the lens of real-estate and land-use professionals.”
 
According to the #MSPswagger webpage, the challenge in the next five years is to “overcome a predicted workforce shortage of 100,000” people. “Concise, strategic branding will enable the region to compete for talent nationally,” and critical to that endeavor is placemaking: “Creating a work, live, play culture will encourage long-term talent retention.”
 
“What better way is there to talk about these issues than during a program for the land-use industry,” says Aubrey Austin, director of member engagement for ULI MN. And at this point, there are more questions than answers.
 
“How do we talk about what is good about our region, and what’s working well, so we can better respond to the challenges ahead?” Austin suggests. “What should we be thinking about in the land-use industry, around development and places, so we can be better prepared for a growing population and new workforce? That leads to another question: How do we talk about our region to encourage people to move here?”
 
Moreover, Austin continues, “We need to ask: What attracts businesses to downtown? How do we figure out why businesses locate where they do? What’s so important about connectivity and transit-oriented development? How can we have a conversation that encourages people to contribute and be civically engaged with their city?”
 
Yes, Austin and Palkowitsch agree that MSP already has a lot going for it. But there’s more to be done.
 
“Part of ULI’s mission is to bring public and private entities together,” Palkowitsch says. “City and business leaders, city planners and marketing professionals all need to be part of the conversation.” The speakers for #MSPswagger reflect that variety. On the panel are: Chris Behrens, president and CEO of YA (a marketing firm that recently moved to downtown Minneapolis); Andrew Dresdner, an urban designer with Cuningham Group; and Kris Growcott, an entrepreneur.
 
“We’re hoping for an open discussion from different sectors talking about what’s important to them,” Austin says, “and finding common ground.”
 
To register for #MSPswagger – Building a Talent Powerhouse, go here.
 
 
 

Four years after a tornado damaged dozens of homes and businesses in the district’s heart, North Minneapolis is experiencing a development resurgence. At the intersection of Penn Avenue and Golden Valley Road, the Commons at Penn mixed-use project is nearing completion; it’s slated for occupancy in early spring.
 
Less than a mile north on Penn, at the busy five-way intersection of Penn and Broadway, an even more ambitious mixed-use property is taking shape: Broadway Flats, North Minneapolis’ largest workforce housing project in more than a decade.
 
Rose Development, a North Minneapolis company owned by a prominent local family, is taking the lead on the project with help from a $1.4 million pay-as-you-go TIF grant. ESG Architects designed the building. Broadway Flats sits squarely in the track of the 2011 North Minneapolis tornado, which damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and businesses in the neighborhood.
 
“In the aftermath of the 2011 tornado, a vibrant future is taking shape on the corner of Penn and West Broadway avenues,” said Dean Rose, principal at Rose Development, in a recent post. “Broadway Flats...[is] bringing new vitality and opportunity to West Broadway.”
 
Broadway Flats’ plans call for 103 units of workforce housing and “a level of quality and amenities not previously available in the community.” Renderings show an oblong, four-story structure that fronts on Broadway and occupies most of an irregularly shaped block.
 
Broadway Flats will have nearly 20,000 square feet of first-floor retail. About half of that space will be occupied by an expanded and redesigned Broadway Liquor Outlet, which is also owned by the Rose family. The store was extensively damaged in the 2011 tornado and is currently located in a smaller structure across Broadway. Rose Development hasn’t announced tenants for the rest of the first-floor space, but has previously indicated an interest in attracting a high-end restaurant or locally owned retail.
 
According to Broadway Flats’ website, residents can look forward to a host of high-end amenities that wouldn’t look out of place in the North Loop or Uptown: a high-tech business center; a fully outfitted fitness center; conference, community and party rooms; and heated underground parking.
 
Plans also call for a partially covered, heated transit platform serving the popular 19 bus. If Metro Transit stays on track with plans for the bus rapid transit C Line, currently slated for a late-decade opening, the Penn Avenue platform will receive an upgrade and/or new signage.
 

The Green Line corridor isn’t the only area of MSP experiencing a boom in community-driven development. Two miles northwest of the Green Line’s Target Field terminus, at the heavily trafficked Penn Avenue/Golden Valley Road intersection in North Minneapolis’ Willard-Hay neighborhood, an ambitious mixed-use project is taking shape: The Commons at Penn Avenue.  
 
A four-story, block-long structure, Commons at Penn will house 45 units of workforce housing, a host of community amenities and the 4,000 square foot Wirth Cooperative Grocery Store — MSP’s newest grocery co-op. Watson-Forsberg and LHB Corporation are co-developing the project.
 
Building Blocks, a North Minneapolis nonprofit founded and overseen by native son (and former NBA star) Devean George, designed and financed Commons at Penn. Wirth Co-op is financed independently, thanks in part to a $500,000 federal grant, and will lease space in Commons at Penn’s ground floor.
 
If the current schedule holds, Commons at Penn and Wirth Co-op should open in spring 2016 — well in advance of the planned Penn Avenue BRT (C Line)’s debut later this decade.
 
“We’re shooting for an Earth Day opening for the co-op,” says Miah Ulysse, Wirth’s general manager.
 
The development will join nearby Broadway Flats in providing affordable housing and locally run retail along North Minneapolis’ densely populated Penn Avenue corridor.
 
According to Building Blocks, Commons at Penn’s residential component will feature a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units with touches common in downtown lofts: hardwood floors and nine-foot ceilings. Amenities include community rooms, an onsite fitness center and three laundry rooms.
 
Commons at Penn’s first floor will include a Northpoint Health & Wellness office. Though the Northpoint office won’t be a full-service clinic — the focus is on “community outreach with space for events and health education classes,” according to Building Blocks — the design does include two “flexible-use exam rooms.” Building Blocks will office in an adjacent suite.
 
Wirth Co-op’s arrival is another boost for the area, often considered a food desert: The closest full-service grocery store is the Cub Foods at Broadway and I-94, well over a mile to the east. Corner convenience stores and gas stations stock essentials and plenty of snack foods, but rarely fresh fruits, veggies or non-processed foods. According to TCYIMBY, about 40 percent of Wirth’s fresh food will be certified organic or natural; that proportion could increase as the co-op establishes itself in the neighborhood.
 
“Locally sourced items will be a huge focus for us, in addition to organic and natural,” says Ulysse.
 
As of mid-October, the most recent reporting date, Wirth Co-op had about 460 committed members out of a 500-member goal. Membership is $100 (one-time) per household, payable in $25 installments, and $15 for those qualifying for public assistance.
 

If the criteria of marketable real estate — “location, location, location” — still holds true, then a prime parcel in the Twin Cities has it all. Open space. River views. Recreational fields. Historical resonance. Old-growth vegetation. It’s minutes from light rail and freeways, and is adjacent to a state park with a lake, bicycling and x-county ski trails, hiking paths and an interpretive center.
 
Most likely, you’ve sped past it en route to MSP International Airport or the Mall of America. Or maybe you’ve played ultimate Frisbee, baseball, soccer, golf or polo on the site. Or even, having taken a wrong turn, found yourself in a ghost town with crumbling houses, grand dilapidated structures and overgrown thoroughfares that begin and end seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
 
Welcome to the Upper Post of Fort Snelling. Home to buff- and red-brick buildings — including an imposing headquarters with a grand clock tower, rows of barracks, and a lane of once-stately officers’ homes with columns and porches — the Upper Post is a National Historic Landmark, and part of a larger National Register District that includes portions of the Mississippi River and its environs.
 
For years, however, the buildings have languished. Owned by the State of Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Upper Post has been largely used for parks and recreation. But in 1998, the DNR hired Miller Dunwiddie Architecture, Minneapolis, to access the buildings’ structural integrity and potential for reuse.
 
By 2006, a Save America’s Treasures grant secured by Hennepin County paid for the buildings’ stabilization. Work included re-roofing buildings, patching holes in the walls, sealing up windows and doors with plywood, and covering up porches.
 
But the structures’ only hope of long-term survival rested in their adaptive reuse. Many developers floated ideas. But only Dominium’s recent proposal to transform the structures into an affordable–housing community has generated true excitement.
 
“We’ve taken on similar adaptive reuse projects with lots of challenges,” says
Russ Condas, development associate, including St. Paul’s Schmidt Brewery on West Seventh Street and the Pillsbury A-Mill in Minneapolis—both of which have been developed and designed as affordable artist housing in conjunction with BKV Group. “But, as always, the Upper Post will pose its own unique challenges.”
 
Hennepin County, the DNR and other stakeholders “have done a good job of protecting the buildings,” he says. “They’re in decent shape because they were well constructed and feature strong architectural features from the late-1880s. But they’re old, weathered and in need of attention.”
 
The approximately $100 million project will be financed through a combination of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Federal and State Historic Tax Credits, and other sources. “These tax credits make the project feasible from our perspective,” Condas says. Dominium specializes in affordable and workforce housing, as well as the adaptive reuse of historic structures.
 
“Projects like this one take an incredible investment from a construction cost standpoint, in order to make them work,” Condas says. “Without that stack of tax credits, the project wouldn’t be do-able.”
 
The project includes 26 buildings on the site, “which we’ll treat as one apartment community,” Condas says, with approximately 190 units of affordable housing. “While most buildings will provide housing, we’re also looking at other structures for amenities.”
 
According to Dominium, the Upper Post redevelopment “will meet a strong demand in the market; research…shows that in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, there are only 34 apartments that are affordable and available for every 100 residents making less than $20,000 a year.”
 
With the site’s location near the Mall of the America and international airport, the need for workforce housing is acute. The site is a half-mile from the Blue Line light rail. “We feel there will be a strong demand for these apartments, which will offer a great opportunity for people to live affordably in a beautiful location and easily commute to work.”
 

More than a decade after Minneapolis’ historic Pillsbury A Mill closed, capping the city’s reign as the country’s flour-milling capital, the four-building mill complex—which includes the iconic limestone A Mill—is once again becoming a hub of innovation and industry, this time driven by artists. The developer Dominium, which recently transformed St. Paul’s 1890 Schmidt’s Brewery into Schmidt Artists Lofts, is completing the adaptive reuse of the milling complex with BKV Group into the A-Mill Artist Lofts.
 
The first phase, Warehouse 2, a four-story, wood-frame building next to The Soap Factory, has been open since December and includes 43 living units, says David Lepak, community manager, A-Mill Artist Lofts. The 1881 A Mill designed by architect Leroy Buffington, the south A Mill cleaning house, and the 1910 elevator known as the “red-clay-tile building,” will be open for occupancy in August.
 
“Dominium knows there’s a need for affordable artists’ housing, and we’ve been successful with other projects in St. Paul and St. Louis,” Lepak says. The complex, which will be LEED certified, includes 255 living units designed for qualifying artists. To support artists’ work, the complex includes galleries, a performance and rehearsal space, and studios for dancers, visual and multi-media artists, photographers and potters.
 
“The neighborhood is already highly populated with artists,” says Lepak, referring to the Marcy-Holmes and Northeast neighborhoods. The transformed A Mill complex will further “drive people to the area for creative resources, and bring untapped resources to an already existing artists community with theaters and galleries.”
 
BKV Group, a Minneapolis architectural firm, has been working with Dominium on the project. The design team started by conducting laser scans of the buildings, to determine where structures and floors didn’t line up, and where components were missing. In addition to shoring up exterior masonry, structural repairs included new steel support columns (particularly in the limestone A Mill), floor decking and joist repairs, and leveling the floors.

The project was made possible through historic tax credits, because the A Mill is on the National Register of Historic Places. As such, the renovation was closely scrutinized by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and the National Park Service. In particular, the red-tile building—a former grain elevator—doesn’t have openings on the first eight floors, and none could be created. “It’s like a crawl space and we treated it that way,” explains John Stark, project architect, BKV Group.
 
The 27 new living units, instead, are on floors 8-12, and were designed around the existing openings, “which means each unit is unique,” Stark says. In the basement, the architects created a gathering space, fitness room and connections to the two-level parking garage. New outdoor landscaping around the railroad tracks is in the works.
 
The new complex will also have a roof garden with panoramic views of the Mississippi River and downtown Minneapolis, Stark says, and the landmark Pillsbury’s Best Flour sign is being redone in LED lights for greater energy efficiency.
 
Dominium is also considering the use of a hydroelectric heating and cooling system for the complex, using water from the nearby river. The water would enter through an existing tunnel, drop into a turbine pit and generate power to operate the complex. The initiative “would make the complex largely self-sustaining,” Stark says.
 
The project has significant merit regardless. “We’ve helped put the buildings back on the tax rolls, and created a new source of industry that tells the character of what Minneapolis was and is today,” Stark says. Lepak agrees, adding that the new A-Mill Artist Lofts “will add tremendously to the further development of an economically vibrant area of Minneapolis.”
 
 

Last weekend, with the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District abuzz with Art-A-Whirl—the largest annual open-studio art tour in the country—the scene was set for the grand opening of Artspace Jackson Flats. The $10 million, 35-unit, live-work artist apartments in Northeast are the first affordable artist housing project in the city from the Minneapolis-based national nonprofit, Artspace.
 
With a large lawn and playset on the property, which is located in the Logan Park neighborhood, Artspace is billing the new property as family-friendly—something president Kelley Lindquist says is something of a rarity in the city.
 
“It’s a little more challenging for young parents to have kids in intense downtown projects…it’s just much easier when the residence is neighborhood-based,” Lindquist says.
 
Children can often lend to the creative and collaborative environment Artspace seeks to foster. Kids are often the first to break down communication walls, running through the halls and forming relationships with other children in the building.
 
“Eventually the parents start hanging out and start sharing their different artistic skills and coming up with new creative projects—and they may never have done so without their children paving the way,” Lindquist says.
 
Other Artspace projects like the Frogtown Family Lofts in St. Paul—the organization’s second project ever, completed in 1991—are also good examples of children spurring collaboration in creative environments.
 
Artist and Jackson Flats resident April Barnhart, who launched her Aprilierre jewelry line in 2009, says she is already benefitting from the artist community developing in and beyond the building.
 
“It’s really not an easy decision when you decide to commit your life to the arts,” she says.  “Having the right resources and the right workspace are important to cultivate creativity.”
 
Being in close proximity to other creative people has advantages as well. Barnhart experienced these benefits first hand when she ran into a neighbor in the building who heard she was a jeweler. He happened to have a set of glass display cases he no long needed and thought she could put them to good use.
 
“They were exactly what I’ve been looking for in antique stores for years,” she said.
 
As much as Jackson Flats was built for artists, it was also a product of the artist community to begin with. When former Northeast Community Investment Cooperative Executive Director John Vaughn sat down with the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association in 2004, the organization’s goals were specific: First, to create and arts district, and second, was to build artist housing.
 
“We took that heart and that became our mission,” Vaughn says. He brought in architects from UrbanWorks Architecture to a neighborhood meeting where he talked with artists and residents of the area about what they wanted from the building that would become Jackson Flats.
 
As residents threw out ideas, the architect drew them into a design. At the end of the hour-long meeting, the sketch had taken shape. “This building very much looks like it was originally envisioned,” Vaughn said. “It comes very much out of the arts community and out of this community here.
 
The opening of Jackson Flats was part of Artspace’s “Breaking Ground” celebration, which began with a creative placemaking symposium featuring grantees from the St. Paul Companies Leadership Initiatives in Neighborhoods program at the new multi-family residence.

The celebration concluded Monday at an event at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts (another Artspace project) during which Artspace presented numerous awards. The awardees included Catherine Jordon of Minneapolis, recipient of the Paul Brawner Award for Support of the Arts.
 
 
 

Already, the Little Earth of United Tribes Homeownership Initiative is turning around part of Minneapolis’s East Phillips neighborhood.

As its name suggests, the initiative helps members of the Little Earth community get to the point of homeownership.

Only a handful of years ago, the American Indian-targeted affordable housing Little Earth was considered dangerous and undesirable, says City Council member Gary Schiff.

Today, Little Earth has a waiting list of 100 people. “It’s a significant sign of success for the organization,” he says.   

In some ways, this relates to the homeownership initiative, which got its start a few years ago, he says.

At the time, Little Earth began working with the city to reduce crime in the area.  

Little Earth took a zero-tolerance attitude towards crime, evicting problem tenants. Then it partnered with the city to buy up the nearby rental housing on what's referred to as the E.M. Stately blocks, where drug-dealing and gang activity were still an issue. That's where the homeownership initiative, which involves rehabbing or constructing seven new single-family homes, comes into play.

The housing is like an extension of Little Earth, while providing for the possibility of homeownership--the first initiative like this in the city to target American Indians. “It’s an economic development and anti-crime strategy,” he says, adding that crime is way down.  

The program, which includes everything from the new homes to job assistance, creates an economic ladder for those who want to live in the area, but who don’t qualify for low-income housing at Little Earth, he says.   

One of the homes is being rehabbed right now, while another four are under construction. The houses are planned to be ready by wintertime.  

“The number of residents paying market-rate rents is really fascinating,” he says, adding, “People want to live there and be a part of the Native American community.”

Schiff is finding that word is spreading. People at Little Earth are taking classes to become homeowners and establish a good credit record. “It’s gotten people excited at Little Earth to realize it’s building an economically diverse community,” he says.

The City of Lakes Community Land Trust (CLCLT), Minnesota Housing Partnership (MHP), Woodlands Bank, the city, and the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation (GMHC) collaborated to acquire the lots.

“It’s one of several housing projects that reflect a renaissance for East Phillips and the American Indian community,” he says, adding that the community continues to grow for the second decade in a row.    

Source: Gary Schiff, Minneapolis City Council member
Writer: Anna Pratt

For the City of Lakes Community Land Trust (CLCLT), the North Side is beginning to feel like home.
 
Over the years, the organization, which provides affordable homeownership opportunities, had been looking to expand beyond its 400-square-foot space at the similarly housing-focused PRG, Inc. in South Minneapolis, according to Jeff Washburne, who leads CLCLT.
 
From the outset, the trust sought a North Side presence “based on recent historical challenges that have confronted North Minneapolis, and ability to locate close as possible to the majority of the population identified within the CLCLT mission,” according to trust materials.
 
The Minnesota Nonprofits Assistance Fund offered a vacant, boarded-up two-story building on Glenwood Avenue, which the trust jumped at. In the past, the building had housed a barber shop, a travel agency, and social services and apartment units, he says.
 
The organization acquired the 2,000-square-foot building in August 2010. It moved in earlier this summer. “We felt it was a great fit, a good location, and a good neighborhood,” he says, adding that work is still ongoing in the building.
 
Washburne sees it as an up-and-coming area. “It’s one of those corridors a lot of people don’t know about but if you drive down it you can see the potential of it,” he says, adding that International Market Square and a number of design firms are nearby.  
 
To make way for the trust the building was gutted, while the mechanical systems and roof were replaced.

It's unique for a land trust to own a commercial building, according to trust information. 
 
Much of the $300,000 project was done pro bono; the assistance fund and the city chipped in $160,000 combined, while, besides $90,000 in capital funding, the trust received $50,000 in pro bono commitments, according to trust materials.  
 
Meyer Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd., a local architecture firm, donated services to rehab and build out the building. Oppenheimer, Wolff, and Donnelly provided legal services, while the Andersen Corporation Foundation donated windows and the Valspar Foundation gave paint, according to the trust.   
 
Plant donations are still needed for the landscaping.
 
Today, the building includes a number of offices and conference rooms and a community meeting space, along with a kitchen. In the future, another small nonprofit organization could rent space in the building, he says.   
 
Already the trust has partnered with the Harrison neighborhood on several initiatives. “By locating there, it creates opportunities to connect with people and let people know we want to invest in the community,” Washburne says.    
 
The trust is in a good position to the plant the seed of homeownership in an area where this can be a challenge. “We’re a resource for residents to buy homes here and across the city,” he says. “It’ll spur more opportunities locally than there otherwise would be.”
 
 
Source: Jeff Washburne, Executive Director, City of Lakes Community Land Trust
Writer: Anna Pratt
 
 

A vintage building in St. Paul’s Merriam Park neighborhood, which at one point was scheduled to be demolished, is getting a second chance.

It’ll become a transitional housing facility for adults who’ve struggled with chemical dependency.

Transition Homes Corp., which runs a program along those lines at the nearby Foundation House, plans to bring its services to the Merriam Park building following its renovation.

It’s a positive change for the 1880s building, which went through foreclosure stages in recent years, according to Mike Blair, who manages Foundation House.

At one point the city planned to tear down the building, which has sat vacant for 12 years. However, “The city was able to get a waiver on it due to its historic nature,” he says.

A Pioneer Press story details the three-level building’s distinctive features, including its "polygonal shape, the elliptical arches over its windows and the castle battlement-like notches of its parapet.”

Transition Homes Corp., which is still negotiating the building’s purchase, will put in an outpatient office and a 25-unit “board and lodge facility” for men.  

The building, which now is an empty shell, will get a new kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, lounge, and more, he says.

Right now, the group is waiting for the various approvals it needs to get going on the project, which the Pioneer Press reports will total $1 million.

Blair says that the development is a good use of the space. It’ll serve people who are “homeless by definition, with no job, no assets, no income,” and who are becoming sober.

"We try to offer a foundation for recovery," he says.

That involves finding jobs and permanent housing, he says.  

If all goes as planned, the place could open as early as this fall.

Source: Mike Blair, manager, Foundation House
Writer: Anna Pratt

“Homes for All,” a documentary from Twin Cities Public Television (TPT), showcases several Twin Cities affordable housing projects that go above and beyond.

The documentary, which was sponsored in part by the Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers, Minnesota Housing Partnership, and the Community Land Trust Coalition, will air on TPT on Feb. 19.  

It focuses on three different public- and private- sector developments that vary in size, including Hope Communities apartments in Minneapolis, Quarry View townhomes in Apple Valley, and Forest Ridge Townhomes in Forest Lake.  

Chip Halbach, executive director of the Minnesota Housing Partnership, explains that the documentary was put together to “give the general public a more in-depth understanding of what affordable housing is.”

The documentary profiles some residents of the developments behind the scenes, showing what their homes look like and how they fit into the community.

In each of these cases, the developments are “designed to contribute to the community,” he says.  

For example, Hope Communities, a 173-unit apartment complex at Franklin and Portland avenues in Minneapolis's Phillips neighborhood, has helped turn around a blighted area.

Besides stabilizing home life for its residents, the building, which was developed jointly by Minneapolis-based Hope Community and nearby Aeon, hosts various youth programs. “It goes beyond just making it safer,” Halbach says. “It’s a community-organizing vehicle” that has sparked revitalization elsewhere in the neighborhood as well.  

Although there's more work to be done in the neighborhood, “It all adds up to something that’s a real positive force in the Phillips neighborhood," he says.

In the documentary, a number of housing experts also “provide context for why the public should be interested in these affordable housing investments,” he adds.  

Source: Chip Halbach, executive director, Minnesota Housing Partnership
Writer: Anna Pratt

The $45 million Currie Park Lofts will turn around a vacant, blighted property in Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

It’ll also bring much-needed affordable housing to the area, according to developer Bianca Fine, who leads Fine Associates.

The six-story development will have 260 mixed-income apartments between floors two through six--with room to accommodate large families--while a cultural center, adult and child daycare, and a neighborhood grocer will share the first-floor retail space.

Right now, besides some limited parking, there’s a single-family home on the site that has an interesting history as a brewpub, and which the company is looking into the possibility of moving, she says.

One of the biggest advantages of the project's location is its proximity to the light rail transit lines, bus stops, and bicycle amenities. It’s also within walking distance of several large institutions, including the University of Minnesota, and downtown’s business district.

As such, “It’s a true transit-oriented development,” which helps fulfill city and neighborhood goals for the area.

Visually, Currie Park Lofts will blend into the neighborhood with a brick, glass and metal exterior, along with a pedestrian-scale design and landscaping. “Many different colors and finishes and textures will make it look like several different small buildings,” Fine explains.

Further, the design incorporates a number of balconies, which means “a lot of eyes on the street," and there'll also be green spaces and recreational areas.

Fine Associates has been working on the project since 2005, and that has “given us a lot of time to figure out how to do it best,” Fine says. “The more we got to know the neighborhood, the more we got to understand its needs,” and respond to them, which, she adds is key for its long-term success.  

In the next 20 years, projections show the need for housing in the neighborhood is likely to increase dramatically, according to Fine. “The neighborhood needs an engine of economic improvement,” she says, adding that the project will be “strongly integrated.”

Construction of the lofts could begin as early as this fall.

Source: Bianca Fine, Fine Associates
Writer: Anna Pratt