Developer Yellow Tree takes root near Blue Line.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

Yellow Tree might soon get its first chance to build apartments near a Minneapolis light rail station, a station that has already drawn significant apartment construction.

The Minneapolis-based developer plans to build a market-rate, 63-unit transit-oriented apartment building at 2325 38th St. E. Yellow Tree has previously built in dense Minneapolis neighborhoods with good access to bus routes, but had never acquired a site near a light rail line, said Robb Lubenow, one of Yellow Tree's founders.

The proposed apartments would be six blocks west of the 38th Street Station on the Blue Line light rail and is at the southwest corner of 38th Street East and 24th Avenue South. The building would include 4.500 square feet of first-floor commercial space and would take the place of a defunct gas station and a duplex.

The Minneapolis Planning Commission Committee of the Whole reviewed the project last week. Yellow Tree hopes to have the project approved by the end of the year. Construction would likely start next summer.

The gas station which has already been razed to make room for the four-story apartment building is no loss to the neighborhood, said Candace Miller Lopez, the executive director of the Standish-Ericsson Neighborhood Association. Neighbors have generally found Yellow Tree's proposal to be attractive, particularly since the developer designed the building to fit in with the homes around it.

The building steps down to a single story at its rear, where it faces homes, and is set back from streets and sidewalks.

The apartments will also be just seven blocks east of Yellow Tree's offices at 1834 38th St. E.

"They have a lot to lose if they do this wrong," Miller Lopez said in an interview on Monday.

Neighbors did express concern at recent meetings with the developer over the 32 parking spaces the apartments will have for residents, Miller Lopez said. However, the building is designed to attract renters who do not need or who do not want to own cars, Lubenow said.

"This is for people who want to live close to the light rail," he said in an interview.

Yellow Tree planned the building to be part of the street scene in the neighborhood. Lubenow said the developer hopes to attract a restaurant or other "mom-and-pop" businesses to the commercial space.

The new building emphasizes smaller apartments. Fifty-five of the units will be studios or one-bedroom units, according to documents filed with the city. Twenty-nine of...