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Hot Property: 38th Street transit station apartment project
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38TH STREET TRANSIT STATION APARTMENT PROJECT
3725 29th Av. S., Minneapolis
Type: Rental apartments
Units: 64
Size: 84,000 square feet
Area: 0.88 acres
Developer: Klodt Inc.
Details: One of the Twin Cities' most active developers of new rental apartments -- especially for those near the Hiawatha light-rail transit line -- has broken ground on a building that will be the nearest yet to any of the line's stations.
Klodt Inc. last month received city approval for a still-unnamed project along 29th Avenue S. in a snug empty lot directly behind the Hiawatha line's 38th Street station. As may be guessed from its location, it will be aimed at renters who want to take advantage of mass transit, although it will also have underground parking for residents who want to hang on to their cars.
Klodt has developed three other apartment complexes near the light-rail line: The 61-unit Oaks Hiawatha Station, the 163-unit Hiawatha Flats Phase I and the 61-unit Hiawatha Flats Phase II, which is under construction. All of those, however, are across Hiawatha Avenue from the tracks and none of them will be closer to a station than the new project. It is being built on surplus land once held by the Metropolitan Council for the 38th Street station's construction.
"It's a tight lot, but we believe that, when it's built, it will be very attractive because you'll almost literally be able to step from the back door onto the station platform," said John Bell, Klodt's vice president of construction.
Bell said that, after objections were raised by neighborhood residents about the project's four-story height, the top story was redesigned so that it will be recessed, mitigating the "wall effect" in what is otherwise an overwhelmingly single-family home streetscape.
Apartments continue to be one of the few bright spots in the commercial real estate landscape. About 2,500 new multifamily units were in various stages of development at midyear, according to NorthMarq, with about 860 of them set to open this year. Many of those units, analysts said, are part of transit-oriented developments.
Bell said the 29th Avenue building will not be packed with luxury features, but will have an exercise room, a party room and a second-floor patio to be built on the roof of its parking structure. It will consist of primarily one- and one-plus-bedroom units at rental rates of about $1.25 to $1.50 per square foot.
DON JACOBSON
Don Jacobson is a freelance writer based in St. Paul. He can be reached at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com.
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