More Than $318M In Mpls Construction Projects Underway

Nearly 30 residential and commercial construction projects in Minneapolis, each with construction costs in excess of $1 million, received building permits during this year's second quarter—together they amounted to $318.5 million.
 
The city of Minneapolis recently released its quarterly overview of socioeconomic and housing trends for the second quarter of 2013, the most recent period for which data was available.
 
The report, among other things, compiles construction projects that had costs higher than $1 million that were permitted in the second quarter. It then details the projected construction costs—excluding land acquisition or soft costs, such as architectural, engineering, financing, and legal fees.
 
According to the report, the value of the total major construction projects was 67 percent higher than during the first quarter of 2013, up from $191.2 million—when the largest single project permit was the new 26-story apartment building called the Nic on Fifth.
 
The value of permitted projects was 116 percent higher than the second quarter of 2012, when they totaled $147.4 million and the largest single project permit was the remodeling of Orchestra Hall on Nicollet Mall.
 
The largest project permitted during this year’s second quarter was a new 165-unit, 12-story condo building called Stonebridge Lofts, which had projected construction costs of $94.5 million. The downtown Minneapolis complex is on 12th Avenue South near the Guthrie Theater and is set to open in spring 2014.
 
The two projects following Stonebridge in value were both Elan Uptown luxury apartment projects in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood. One was for a 219-unit portion of a six-story apartment building ($71 million in construction costs) and the other was for a 153-unit portion of the same building ($49 million in construction costs).
 
Five of the top seven projects on the list were for apartment or condo buildings. In addition to the top three, the list included a new apartment complex called District 600 in the North Loop whose construction costs will exceed $10 million and an office-to-apartment conversion project by Everwood Development on Hennepin Avenue ($7 million in construction costs).
 
Other large projects included a lab space renovation at the Blake School in Lowry Hill ($7.5 million in construction costs), a re-roofing project for the HCMC building ($5.3 million in construction costs), and a new Goodwill retail location on Nicollet Avenue ($4.2 million in construction costs).
 
Twin Cities Business Senior Writer Burl Gilyard recently took an in-depth look at the apartment boom in Minneapolis. About 3,100 new apartments are reportedly slated to open this year alone, which is more than any single year since 1996—and most are considered “luxury”—and another 5,200 units are expected to be completed next year.
 
To learn more about the reasons behind the apartment mania and the potential problems it could bring, click here.

See the full list below.