Downsized apartments moving ahead near St. Anthony Main.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

Doran Cos. and CSM Corp. are moving forward with a downsized apartment development plan near St. Anthony Main after deleting a planned tower and affordable apartments from the project.

The two Twin Cities developers removed a 30-story tower from their plan for 311 Second St. SE and 215 Fifth Ave. SE after it was rejected by the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission in January. That rejection came several months after members of the city's Planning Commission had signaled their approval of a development that would have included 800 total apartments.

Doran and CSM have redesigned the market-rate project as a set of six-story buildings with a total of 575 units, as well as about 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. On June 3, the Planning Commission will take up the project for a site plan review and approvals for a final plat and a conditional use permit for a planned unit development on the 6.18 acre site.

The Doran-CSM site is bounded by University Avenue Southeast, Second Street Southeast, Third Avenue Southeast and Fifth Avenue Southeast. The site is part of 8.71 acres of property the developers purchased from General Mills in 2017 for $15.8 million. The purchase included the four-story, 66,000-square-foot General Mills Riverside Technical Center. That building will be demolished.

The new apartments would rise next to Doran's and CSM's 25-story, 368-unit Expo luxury apartment project, which is under construction at 215 Second St. SE. That $100 million-plus project is expected to be complete by summer of 2020.

Last summer, the developers presented five options for the project to city planning officials. Doran and CSM moved forward with a design that would have put a six-story apartment block on the western block of the project site, and the tower, more six-story apartments and an affordable building on the...