Master Properties is going to revamp the Troy Building, a 105-year-old structure in downtown Minneapolis’ Elliot Park neighborhood. The developer plans to turn it into 24 market rate apartments.
Minneapolis-based Master debuted the plan at a Thursday meeting of the Elliot Park Neighborhood organization’s Building, Land Use & Housing committee. Don Gerberding, principal with Master Properties, said the company is developing the property on behalf of the property owners, Ehab Elsayed and Amina Deble Elsayed, who will retain ownership once the project is done.
“The building has great bones,” Gerberding said. “It’s going to have tons of windows.”
The two-story brick structure at 731 14th St. E. was first used as a laundry, and parts of it remain untouched since that time. Some of the original business’ furnishings are in fact still at the site.
“We found a big safe in there with payroll checks dating from the 1920s to the 1940s,” Gerberding told the committee.
Most recently, the Troy Building housed a small food market, but the business closed in 2013.
According to plans, the units will range in size from 445 to 784 square feet, with a two alcove flats and 22 one-bedroom apartments. Gerberding said rents will range from $1,000 to $1,100. Some of the ground floor units will open onto patios, and one will have a private entrance.
The company plans to begin work this August. Golden Valley-based Benson-Orth will be the general contractor.
The Troy revamp is far from the only apartment project slated for Minneapolis. In just this week, three new proposals will go before the city planning commission’s committee of the whole.
A six-story building with 80 apartments, anchored by an 8,500-square-foot Good Grocer store, is planned for 2644 Nicollet Ave. S. The site is currently a surface parking lot.
Minneapolis developer Schafer Richardson is pitching The Redwell, a six-story mixed-use building with 129 units and 10,000 square feet of commercial space at 1000 N. Third St. The company is renovating the Zuccaro Produce building, which was constructed in 1922. The Redwell proposal apparently takes the place of Schafer Richardson’s earlier plan, which would have converted the structure into 61,000 square feet of office space.
And twin apartment buildings are on deck for the neighborhood just north of the Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Oaks Minnehaha would be the bigger of the two, a four-story 129,716-square-foot structure with 108 units ranging in size from studios to two-bedrooms. The building would go up on a vacant, 1.3-acre parcel that takes up about half of a triangular block bounded by the Blue Line Light Rail / Minnehaha Avenue on the east, 48th Avenue South on the west, and East 54th St. to the south.
Its smaller sibling, Oaks Longfellow, would be a four-story, 90,395-square-foot building with 68 units of housing. The building would also have 1,400 square feet of ground floor retail space, which would most likely be leased to a local coffee shop. The apartments would range in size from studios to two-bedrooms. It is planned for a vacant lot across Minnehaha Avenue to the south and east of its counterpart.
