urbanMSP

http://finance-commerce.com/2015/04/hou ... nneapolis/
Locked...


The House of Charity wants to build a new five-story, L-shaped affordable housing building on property currently occupied by the recently closed Finance & Commerce printing plant at 615 S. Seventh St. (white building, right foreground) and House of Charity’s existing Food Centre at 714 Park Ave. S. (red brick building, left background), as seen from the Hennepin County Medical Center parking ramp.

Questions that come to mind:
-Will house of charity vacant another property due to this?
-Will this be mixed use?
-When do they wish to start this
-Why this location? (there are a lot of properties that aren't being used right now ((vacant)) that could be flipped for housing. Think I'd be much cheaper than building an entire new building)

It would seem like this development could limit the ability to develop the rest of this block. If the site really is just the two lots described above, it will only have limited access to street frontage and the rest of the units will be getting their light from windows facing onto common property lines.

I'd much rather see house of charity doing work on houses in North and filling lots there. Should we ask how much affordable housing we need downtown? There already is a good chunk of it in some parts. Especially Elliot Park. I don't know.

It would seem like this development could limit the ability to develop the rest of this block. If the site really is just the two lots described above, it will only have limited access to street frontage and the rest of the units will be getting their light from windows facing onto common property lines.

I don't think it will be as bad as you think. They could just put the hallway along the outside edge of the building, making the studios face out over Lehman's. There's no way they'd have room for a double sided hallway even with studios. I'm assuming they would only be building where the two buildings sandwiching Lehman's garage are now, one of which they already own.

Hey Everyone,

Adam from F&C here. I'm not a spokesman by any means, but here to answer a few of the questions above.

--House of Charity has a facility that abuts our old press plant, immediately south of Lehman's. That must have had a lot to do with their decision to buy, as they'll put up an L-shaped building in place of our plant and the current building along Eighth.
--The building isn't mixed-use, unless you count administrative offices and/or a food center.
--They want to start next spring. The sale hasn't closed yet, but I believe that's planned for next month.

Wasn't the Lehman's parcel, and possibly more of this block, in play for HCMC expansion?

The block consists of many parcels. The two parcels on the west side of the block facing Portland Ave S are owned by 1103 Properties. There's the soon-to-be-sold Finance & Commerce printing building parcel & the House of Charity parcel. Vaughn E Fesenmaier owns the 8th Street multi floor building parcel. Paisano's Pizza Inc owns the tiny lot behind that (sandwiched between that and the F&C building), along with the SE parcel of the block (8th & Park Ave S). Cossette Management Co Llc owns the Lehman's parcel.

I always hoped HCMC would go west using this block. I suppose it could still happen using the Paisano's Pizza parcels, but it seems pretty tough.

Building low income housing is not a very good use of this parcel. It's in a very desirable location and should really have a project that will increase the tax base for the city.

If I had my dream, they would build all that low income plus a bunch of market rate stacked there too.

Like the place in New York that got 180,000 applications even though they called it then poor door?

Hey Everyone,

Adam from F&C here. I'm not a spokesman by any means, but here to answer a few of the questions above.

--House of Charity has a facility that abuts our old press plant, immediately south of Lehman's. That must have had a lot to do with their decision to buy, as they'll put up an L-shaped building in place of our plant and the current building along Eighth.
--The building isn't mixed-use, unless you count administrative offices and/or a food center.
--They want to start next spring. The sale hasn't closed yet, but I believe that's planned for next month.

Thank you for that information, and welcome!!

I think a smaller scale development on this block is ideal. Less mega-block (hcmc), and more incremental.

Hey Everyone,

Adam from F&C here. I'm not a spokesman by any means, but here to answer a few of the questions above.

--House of Charity has a facility that abuts our old press plant, immediately south of Lehman's. That must have had a lot to do with their decision to buy, as they'll put up an L-shaped building in place of our plant and the current building along Eighth.
--The building isn't mixed-use, unless you count administrative offices and/or a food center.
--They want to start next spring. The sale hasn't closed yet, but I believe that's planned for next month.

Thank you for that information, and welcome!!

Thank you! I can't always come post but everyone here can feel free to get in touch with me @VogeMN when you have questions about one of our stories and I'll do my best to answer.

There's such an immense shortage of affordable housing in easy reach of jobs that I would applaud rather than grump about this project. Also, the western side of the block is part of the stretch targeted for housing along Portland, presumably at market rate. That leaves another parcel open at the southeast of the block, and I agree with the comment that with the megablocks, it's not bad to see a block with (potentially) a number or smaller projects.

There's more room for HCMC to expand if needed, including the back side of their big ol' parking ramp.

I think we need affordable housing in all areas of the city. There is a major shortage in many neighborhoods.

I am very curious how much Elliot Park already has though. Seems like there is a lot.

Tons. Public housing, sober housing, senior housing, supportive housing, everything. Elliot Park as a neighborhood is absolutely overburdened with low-income housing.

However, this particular site is pretty well isolated from all of that though. HCMC is a very effective barrier. This site is much more "Downtown" than it is Elliot Park, even if it does lie within the neighborhood boundaries.

Furthermore half of this project is on land they already own/use, and the other half is a boarded up printing plant.

As long as the Portland Ave side of this block remains developable, I'm fine with it. I echo MNdible's concerns re: how they are going to design the building along the interior lot lines.

It would be great if the620 8th St parcel was Shamrock'd next. Why in the world does "Paisano's Pizza" own that parking lot?

"The GIS map of “Elliot Park Affordable Properties” indicates that fully half the household units in the neighborhood can be classified under some
category of “affordable” housing."

http://elliotparkneighborhood.org/wp-co ... 1-2013.pdf

The Food Center is moving to 7th St. near Portland. So this scene will move to Portland and 7th if this gets done to their plan.

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.972332, ... 901T000000

Seems like a bad idea for the Portland residential corridor.