Hot Property: Track 29 Apartments

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 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.

DON JACOBSON