Apartment tower may be next at Franklin and Lyndale.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

The owner of 2.5 acres of property at a busy Minneapolis intersection is seeking a developer interested in building something as large as a 20-story apartment tower on the site.

Nonprofit Vision Loss Resources issued a request for redevelopment proposals this week for 1936 Lyndale Ave. S. The company operates its social services and office functions out of a 38,000-square-foot building on the property, but wants to sell the property and consolidate its operations at another, yet-unidentified location.

The Twin Cities office of Cushman & Wakefield worked with VLR to determine the "highest and best use" of the property and is representing the nonprofit in the RFP process, said John Breitinger, a Cushman & Wakefield executive director. The brokerage determined that rental housing mixed with ground-floor retail is the best fit for the site, which is at the northwest corner of Franklin and Lyndale avenues.

The intersection is already seeing its share of redevelopment. Reuter Walton Commercial recently completed construction of the 75-unit Modi apartments at the southeast corner of the intersection and a 111-unit apartment building is under construction on the southwest corner. Three blocks south, Minneapolis developer Master is building the 83-unit Rex 26 mixed-use apartments at 2601 Lyndale Ave. S.

Cushman & Wakefield's study of VLR's property produced conceptual renderings that show an apartment tower topping out at more than 20 stories and a three-story pedestal that steps down to shorter, existing buildings to the east, west and south.

VLR has received a number of unsolicited offers over the years from potential buyers interested in redeveloping the property. The RFP process, which will stretch into early summer, is intended to draw multiple offers and developers capable of handling a big project, Breitinger said in a Monday interview.

"If somebody can make sense of building a tower, you'd have...