Type: Retail

Size: 22,700 square feet

Developer: Seward Community Co-op

Architect: LHB Architects

Details: The Seward Community Co-op has made some adjustments in its plans for a new grocery store in Minneapolis' Bryant neighborhood and says it is preparing to submit a land use application for the $10 million project.

Announced late last year, the co-op's Friendship Store proposal would involve the demolition of the former Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, which has since relocated, as well as several adjacent residences where a parking lot would be built.

The co-op has secured purchase agreements with the landowners and in January announced that it had succeeded in gathering the sufficient number of signatures from other nearby homeowners supporting a request to rezone the property from residential to commercial.

Since then, co-op leaders and city officials have been negotiating the details of the project's site plan, under which Seward is seeking not only a rezoning and a series of variances but also to vacate part of the alley between Clinton and 3rd avenues south and to create a new alley extension along the site's southern edge.

In a meeting with the Minneapolis Planning Commission earlier this month, Seward revealed that it has added a store entrance on 38th Street and has reworked the design of the building's facade.

Seward Project Manager Eric Hatting said the changes were well-received by city officials, adding that he expects a formal land use application for the project to be filed this month, with decisions on final city approvals coming later this spring.

Don Jacobson is a freelance writer in St. Paul. He can be reached at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com