The North Loop neighborhood is slated to get some much-needed low-income rental housing. Schafer Richardson , a prolific North Loop developer, received preliminary bond approval today from the city to help finance the transformation of the former Cameron Transfer and Storage company Building at 756 N. 4th St. into 44 units of "affordable" workforce housing. In addition to those bonds, the project will also be financed primarily with historic tax credits. Tod Elkins, Urban Works Architecture, is the architect of record on the project.

The hulking and neglected four-storybuilding is in the heart of the popular North Loop neighborhood and alongside three condo buildings built during the past decade. Most recently known as the Dial Building, the concrete structure was built in 1909/1910 as a cold storage facility. It's been vacant for the past dozen years, but will undergo a top-to-bottom renovation, including a new roof, windows and tuckpointing. The building will have a fitness center, bike storage, outdoor patio/grill area, laundry and surface parking.

The building will be transformed into 44 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments for people who earn 50 to 60 percent of the area median income. Because the latest wave of development in that area has been mostly market rate luxury rentals, there's a serious and growing shortage of inexpensive housing in the area that's affordable to many of the working class people who work service and retail jobs in the shops and restaurants in the area. By the end of last year the average rent in the area was more than $1,400, nearly 10 percent higher than the year before, according to Marquette Advisors.

What's next? The City Planning Commission has already approved the development plans, and at a Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development public hearing this afternoon (3/8/14) preliminary approval was given to the developer's request for up to $7.5 million in tax exempt multi-family housing entitlement revenue bonds. Final approval is pending another meeting in late spring or early summer.

Also, the developer hopes to have the building named to the Naitonal Register of Historic places because of its connection to an internationally known engineer from Minneapolis named Claude Allen Porter - he patented the "mushroom cap" reinforced concrete structural system.That designation will make the building eligible for those historic tax credits, which are aimed at helping subsidize the cost of renovating historically significant buildings.