Battle of bricks in Minneapolis, sealed with a stucco compromise

When Minneapolis tried to force him to construct his proposed condo development with an all-brick exterior, colorful Lake Street developer Basim Sabri unlimbered both bricks and brickbats.

He mailed each city council member a package of three bricks to bolster his argument that an all-brick exterior was impractical. Then he verbally trashed the city for what he described as an arbitrary attempt to hold him to a different standard from other developers.

Sabri finally got his way under a settlement reached with the city that led to a federal judge dismissing his lawsuit against the city this week.

He'll still use plenty of brick in the development. But the settlement permits him to use other durable materials, chiefly stucco, in specified areas.

His redevelopment along the Midtown Greenway between Grand and Pleasant Avenues involves creating 77 condo units out of the brick shell of the former Midwest Machinery building and two new stories.

Assistant City Attorney Erik Nilsson said the city settled the matter because it discovered after the lawsuit was filed that it had placed contradictory conditions on the project in two different types of approval it had given the development. In granting a conditional use permit, the City Council said that the new areas that Sabri plans to add to the building could be stucco. But three months later, in approving Sabri's site plan, it required that the addition be brick.

Council Member Gary Schiff, who pushed for the brick requirement, said a settlement was appropriate because otherwise the city faced the risk of paying damages and Sabri's legal fees. He said that an adverse ruling might also have compromised the city's authority to govern the exterior finish of buildings.

Nilsson said the city achieved its primary goal, which was to have the first three stories along the greenway remain brick. Sabri is free to use stucco in the new upper stories he plans to construct along the greenway and in selected other areas.

Sabri argued that the best brick in the building was made in the early 20th century and can no longer be found, and that the building's two types of lesser-quality brick don't match it.

"The city has realized that they stepped over their boundaries," he said. "There's no way that the judge and jury would buy you having to finish your house in a certain way."