Minneapolis developer Schafer Richardson won the backing Monday of the Bloomington City Council to buy and develop a vacant lot near Interstates 494 and 35W that has been owned by the city since 2008.
The firm is aiming to build between 100 and 120 apartments, some with rent affordable for people with low-to-moderate incomes and some rented at market rates, according to Katie Anthony, vice president of development.
"We're focusing on family-size housing," Anthony said, not just studio and one-bedroom apartments.
The city bought the property at 700 American Boulevard W. in September 2008 for just more than $500,000, and bid documents this year put the minimum purchase price of the property at $2 million. City officials didn't release terms of the purchase but it likely will be upwards of $2 million, depending on subsidies agreed upon.
Bloomington requested proposals to develop the site in February 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed that process. The city solicited new proposals in September, and the council met in a closed session last month to choose Schafer Richardson over two other companies.
Schafer Richardson did not submit a proposal in 2020, Anthony said, but submitted a proposal this year as the firm looks to grow its affordable housing portfolio. She noted the firm's large mixed-income developments under construction on St. Paul's West Side and at the former Broadway Pizza site in Minneapolis.
The resolution of support for the project passed Monday by the City Council is necessary for Schafer Richardson to seek public financing.
Bloomington officials view the vacant parcel, at American Boulevard and Lyndale Avenue, as key in transforming the character of the city's stretch of Lyndale. Community input has favored reshaping the road currently dominated by big-box stores, strip malls and car dealers into something more pedestrian-friendly, like the stretch of Lyndale that runs through Richfield just across I-494.
