Apartments to replace temporary homeless shelter.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

The Red Lake Nation plans to start building affordable apartments this fall that have been in the works since 2016 at a Minneapolis site currently used as a temporary homeless shelter.

The 110-unit Mino-bimaadiziwin Apartments would rise on about 1.48 acres of land at 2105-2113 Cedar Ave. S. and 1820 and 1834 22nd St. E. The site is 400 feet south of the Franklin Avenue Station on the Blue Line light rail, and is adjacent to light industrial buildings and the American Indian OIC employment center at 1845 Franklin Ave. E.

If all goes according to plan, construction would start in September and the building would open in October 2020, said Mary Novak, a development specialist with the St. Paul-based Landon Group. The Landon Group is acting as the development consultant for the project.

Loeffler Construction, a Native American-owned builder in Lakeville, is the general contractor. The Minneapolis office of the Cuningham Group is the architect.

The city's Planning Commission Committee of the Whole will evaluate the proposal on Feb. 14.

The $38.8 million project will be funded by affordable housing tax credits, bonds issued by the city and "quite a list of ABCs" of other funding sources including transit-oriented development funds and money from Hennepin County, Novak said in a Wednesday interview. The Red Lake Nation has also applied for $2.3 million in tax increment financing through the city. Assembling the financing has contributed to the long development timeline, Novak said.

Representatives of the tribe did not respond on Wednesday to a request to comment on the project.

The tribe owns most of the property designated for the project site. A 0.15-acre portion of the site at 1845 Franklin Ave. E. is not owned by the tribe, according to Hennepin County property records. However, those records may be erroneous, Novak said. The tribe is doing a title search to determine whether it might actually own that property, she said.

Sixty-six of the apartments in the proposed six-story building would be affordable to tenants earning up to 60 percent of the area median income, Novak said in a Thursday interview. The remaining apartments would be affordable to tenants earning up to 50 percent of the AMI, which is $94,300 for a family of four and $63,300 for a single person, according to the Metropolitan Council. Twenty-four apartments would be supportive housing for people who have been homeless or who have disabilities, Novak...

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