Renovation begins for pioneering senior home

When Ebenezer Tower Apartments opened in 1974, it was Minneapolis' very first senior high-rise building and boasted what were then some innovative design features in housing for the elderly.

This week, owners Ebenezer Society and Fairview Health Services, along with general contractor Kraus-Anderson Construction, launched a $10.2 million restoration aimed at giving residents of the 23-story building some much-needed interior upgrades.

The 192-unit concrete tower, at 2523 Portland Av. S., is part of Ebenezer's four-building campus in the Phillips neighborhood, a presence that dates back to 1917 when the Ebenezer Home for the Aged was first established on the block. Along with the nearby Ebenezer Park Apartments, the tower provides the campus' independent living option, with a roughly 50-50 mix of market-rate and federally subsidized Section 8 units for low-income seniors.

Ebenezer Tower remains one of Minneapolis' few affordable inner-city senior housing buildings, and the push to preserve it attracted financial help from the city of Minneapolis, Hennepin County and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.

Jon Lundberg, Ebenezer's vice president of operations, said the quest for funding took two years. "From the tenants' standpoint, this will make a big impact in their quality of life," he said. "I think for them the most important improvements will be new energy-efficient windows in all the apartments as well as air conditioning. They've never had that before."

Air conditioning may seem like a basic amenity now. But that wasn't the case 40 years ago, even in a building like Ebenezer Towers that was considered state-of-the-art at the time. As well as its status as the city's first senior high-rise, boasting stunning views of Minneapolis, it was also notable for its top-floor dining room, an innovative design feature of the day.

Since then, independent seniors have largely lost interest in communal dining and prefer using their own kitchens. Another key part of the upgrades at the Ebenezer Tower will be kitchen cabinetry replacement.

The rehab effort will be ongoing until December 2015, which may seem like a long time for such a project. But the work must be performed around residents who are staying in their units the whole time and so must be carefully coordinated to not unduly disrupt their lives, explained Jim Beckwith, a vice president and project manager for Kraus-Anderson.

"Any building that's 100 percent occupied when you're renovating it is a challenge," he said. "The intent on this project is that, even though we're painting and installing new windows during the day, we need to carry it out so that the residents can to go back into their units at night."

Ebenezer's Lundberg said the motivation behind the rehab effort is to preserve a vital housing resource for low-income seniors in Minneapolis, which has seen its supply of federally subsidized housing dwindle due to conversion to market-rate housing and poor management.

"In terms of the affordable senior housing market, we're one of the most significant providers in the city, especially among tenants who had previously been homeless," Lundberg said. "This need is something that's not going to go away in the future. Just by virtue of the fact that the senior population is going to increase in the coming years, that's going to create more demand for affordable housing resources."