TRACK 29 APARTMENTS

2813-2841 Bryant Av. S., Minneapolis

Type: Multifamily

Units: 198

Height: Five stories

Lot Area: 2.76 acres

Developer: Phoenix Development Co.

Details: The phenomenon of turning stalled new condominium projects into apartments is continuing in Minneapolis, where Loren Brueggemann of Phoenix Development Co. last week gained city approval to reshape the Track 29 condo concept along the Midtown Greenway.

The original vision put forward in 2005 foresaw a 71-unit condo loft building going up on Bryant Avenue S. accompanied by a half-dozen nine-unit townhouse buildings along Bryant and Aldrich avenues. Only three townhouse clusters facing Aldrich were ever completed by original developer Ross Fefercorn before the condo market evaporated.

The new plans, spearheaded by Brueggemann, a former Sherman Associates vice president, seek to tap a hot market for rentals by doing away with the unbuilt lofts and townhouses and replacing them with 198 units of apartments in a building with two wings -- a 103-unit edifice facing the Greenway and a 95-unit structure fronting Bryant.

The Minneapolis Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit to amend the original Track 29 condo plan at its meeting last Monday.

"Now that it's approved, we really have to roll up our sleeves and get to work," said Brueggemann, adding that he's confident he'll be able to line up financing and is aiming for an "end of summer" construction start.

The move comes as several other Minneapolis projects originally envisioned as condos are finding new life as apartments. Demand for rentals is surging and supplies of new product are tight.

The 175-unit Mill District City Apartments opened this year where Brighton Development had once planned upscale condos; in another example, Minneapolis-based Lupe Development Partners is repitching the never-built Flour Sack Flats II condo idea near St. Anthony Falls as affordable rental housing.

If the Track 29 Apartments indeed go up, they would join an apartment-building boom in the Lyn-Lake and Uptown neighborhoods. They would be directly north of Greco Properties' Blue development at 2900 Aldrich Av. S., a 146-unit, six-story apartment complex that opened in 2007.

Greco has also begun work on Flux, a 216-unit project that also fronts the Greenway.

DON JACOBSON

Don Jacobson, a freelance writer based in St. Paul, can be contacted at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com.