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It's delay again for ill-fated apartment but higher payoff possible

Hard-luck building now has a different development team that's seeking City Council and neighborhood approval to redevelop the long-vacant building

April 6, 2016 at 8:19PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

It's another month and another blown calendar date for a long-vacant apartment building with a history littered with false hopes.

The city said just a few weeks ago that its deal to sell 628 E. Frankllin Av. would close by the end of March. No dice.

Now a revamped proposal won't get City Council approval until April 29 at the earliest. That's assuming that the Ventura Village neighborhood group signs off at its mid-April meeting, echoing the approval of a subgroup that met recently with Tom Dillon, a member of the development team that seeks city approval to develop the 1904 building. Closing would happen within 30 days, Dillon told the committee.

The prominent building has been vacant for about 20 years.

But the delay could mean a bigger jump in tax base for the property, which the city proposes to sell for $75,000. The latest plan proposes to create market value of $2.275 million property, more than double the $1.05 million that area landlord Mark Orfield said would result from his rehab plan.

Orfield is still in the latest group, but his role is diminished. According to the city, investors John Solberg and James Fritcher of Onward Investors of Eden Prairie are now involved, along with Dillon, a 34-year veteran of the real estate industry who will be the project manager and investor. Orfield, who owns nearby rental properties, said he's a limited partner and might manage the building. People familiar with the project say Orfield turned to Dillon once he realized the level of paperwork needed to do a deal with the city's development arm, which owns the building.

The greater market value comes from a project that's structured oppositely from what Orfield proposed. The new proposal would create 16 one-bedroom apartments with rents projected to start at $812 monthly and escalating to $1,277 for those that include a den. But there will be only two two-bedroom apartments projected to rent for $1,277. That's 18 units, compared to 14 Orfield proposed, all but three of them two bedrooms.

One factor in the change is what Dillon called a handshake agreement with Straitgate Church to acquire some of its parking for the rehabbed apartment. Orfield had proposed basing some of the building's parking in spaces he owns at an apartment complex across Franklin Avenue.

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The Ventura Village land use committee seemed more excited by the bigger project than discouraged by the latest delay on a building that's been vacant for about 20 years, through a string of failed development proposals. Those developers gutted the building, but Dillon said it remains in surprisingly good shape.

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