RIVER ADDRESS HAS PRICE//GREAT VIEWS, HISTORY, URBAN APPEAL ALL DRAW MIX OF RESIDENTS
Published on 05/29/2002
Tag:
Section: Main
Page: A1
Byline: By Judith Yates Borger, Pioneer Press
Ten years ago, the mile and a half of land along Minneapolis' downtown on the Mississippi River was home to pollution and pigeons.
No longer.
Today, condominiums and town homes -- selling for $300,000 to $3 million -- are springing up like tulips. A wasteland, abandoned by obsolete industries, is turning into Minnesota's Gold Coast.
Like St. Paul, Minneapolis has rediscovered its riverfront. So far, $900 million in private money has built 2,600 units in Minneapolis. Hundreds more are planned.
Old money, former suburban empty-nesters, young professionals and a 20-something lottery winner live in the Minneapolis riverfront neighborhood these days. The few kids who live there are in their teens.
The new residents say they like the round-the-clock energy of downtown, believe in supporting the city core and want to live in the historic lumber and milling district.
PRIME LOCATION
Downstream, near St. Anthony Falls and the proposed site for the Guthrie Theater, the feel is urban chic. The old North Star mattress factory, for example, has been converted into 35 units that offer 22-foot-high ceilings, brick walls, hardwood floors, granite kitchen countertops and a few rooftop cabanas.
Mike Goldner, an owner of an investment firm and president of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, and his wife, Barbara, bought their 3,000-square-foot unit when it had nothing more than dirty brick, two huge windows and a Chicago-esque view of downtown on one side and the river on the other.
Today, Goldner, who moved to Minneapolis from his Highland Park neighborhood home in St. Paul, walks 10 minutes to work in the Wells Fargo Building and rides his bike to his favorite spots on the river. "People who come here care about the city," Goldner says. "The view of downtown at night is as lovely as any I've seen, and that includes New York and Paris."
Upstream, at The Landings, the feel is more like Apple Valley: two-car attached garages, separate entrances to each unit, two-story screened porches overlooking the river and a tiny boulevard planted with saplings.
That's where Sam and Sylvia Kaplan moved six weeks ago from their 4,400-square-foot home near Lake Harriet. Their new $3 million, 10,000-square-foot home is nothing like the colonial they left.
That house had many small rooms. This one has a few huge rooms intended for milling crowds of a couple of hundred, such as the fund-raiser brunch the Kaplans are throwing for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., next month.
From the expansive foyer, guests can look up to a balcony perfect for speechmaking. Or they can gaze off to the right, where Sylvia Kaplan can cook and greet guests at the same time from the industrial-size kitchen. The dining area table seats 18.
"I'm genetically urban," says Sylvia Kaplan, explaining the couple's decision to move downtown from southwest Minneapolis. "I like to see people walk by. If this were gated, I wouldn't live here."
AFFORDABLE HOUSING?
Living on the river is not always a slice of heaven, however. Several owners in the high-end Stone Arch Lofts have moved to nearby hotels while the developer fixes the ventilation in an attempt to get rid of mold that developed in their units.
"It totally disrupts your life," says Sherry McPhillips, who hopes to be back in her 2,200-square-foot unit in six weeks. "Sometimes I go over to the condo and throw the tarps off my piano and stand there and play, I want to be back so bad."
The displacement has been a "bonding experience" for the residents, McPhillips acknowledges.
Affordable housing activists may find it hard to work up a lot of sympathy for people temporarily forced out of their half-million-dollar condos. They have been known to refer to the riverfront as "the land of the rich and subsidized."
That's not really true, however. It is true that over the past 20 years the city of Minneapolis, the Park Board and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the land and clean up the pollution to spur development.
To ensure that a broad range of Minneapolis residents have an opportunity to live within walking distance of the river, the city requires that any developer involved with that property, even tangentially, must make 20 percent of the housing affordable. That means about $800 a month in rent for a two-bedroom apartment, or $120,000 for an owned home.
Just because the high-ticket places are the first to be built doesn't mean more affordable places won't follow, says Steve Cramer, who headed the Minneapolis Community Development Agency during much of the time the city has been working on this development.
"When this started, there was no way to know that Sam and Sylvia Kaplan were going to live on the river," says Cramer. "But the fact that they are in the mix is not bad."
In fact, Cramer argues that people who can afford to take the risk of moving into an unproven development are critical to launching riverfront livability.
"I know there's been a lot of criticism about the city's role in buying up the riverfront, but the development that's there now wouldn't have happened without a combination of private and public support," Cramer says. "Now the market is favorable to downtown living. The affordable housing will come."
SHAPING THE FUTURE
In fact, the promise of a mix of incomes in the neighborhood is an attraction for some residents.
"Barb and I wouldn't have moved here but for the mix of architecture and economic circumstances," says North Star resident Goldner.
Last month, for example, the City Council gave the go-ahead for the Stone Arch Apartments to be built just east of St. Anthony Main on the river across from downtown.
There will be 221 units, with 40 percent rented at reduced rates for 30 years to people who make 60 percent or less of the Twin Cities metropolitan area median income.
The city subsidy amounts to about $35,000 per affordable unit. There also are federal tax credits of about $3 million in the project.
"It's great that 20 percent will be affordable rental," says Becky Gomer, head organizer for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "But we need affordable home ownership, too."
Clearly, development is still a work in progress. Last month, when Xcel Energy announced that it would stop burning coal at its power plant on the river, Minneapolis City Council members were quick to note that the land now used for coal storage would offer another opportunity for housing.
Judith Yates Borger can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or (612)
338-8198.
Memo: In Minneapolis, demand for housing on the Mississippi River is
sending costs up -- and raising questions about affordability.
Illustration: 2 PHOTOS: RICHARD MARSHALL, PIONEER PRESS
1)
Sylvia Kaplan exults in her new address: on the banks of the Mississippi River
near downtown Minneapolis. "I'm genetically urban," says Kaplan, who along with
her husband, Sam, recently moved into their $3 million, 10,000-square-foot town
home at The Landings development after leaving the Lake Harriet area of
southwest Minneapolis.
2) Working in her spacious kitchen -- equipped to
industrial standards -- Sylvia Kaplan shells corn. "We had a wonderful house,"
she says of the family's former Lake Harriet residence, "but I kept trying to
make it do the things I wanted it to do, and it never worked out. Here, we can
do the things we want, and it works."
GRAPHIC: PIONEER
PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS' GOLD COAST
Residential and landmark development along the
Mississippi River is booming. Here's a look at some of the major
projects.
Source: Minneapolis Community Development Agency
[See microfilm
for map of project locations]
Send comments or questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
