MINNEAPOLIS – Kansas-based developer The Prime Company wants to build a six-story student housing project on a two-acre slice of land near the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus.
The proposal indicates the campus area’s student housing market may not be saturated yet. Thousands of new student housing units have gone up in the Dinkytown and Stadium Village areas in the past few years.
Elsey’s 201-apartment plan is for the arrowhead-shaped site at 117 27th Ave. S.E. The project would replace a piece of railroad track not far from the intersection of Huron Boulevard and Interstate 94.
Elsey has an agreement to buy the site from Smith Sharpe Co. and Soo Line Railroad, according to a city staff report included in a Sept. 24 committee agenda for the Minneapolis Planning Commission Committee of the Whole. The developer will get some informal feedback from city staff and planning commission members at the meeting before the submission of a formal plan.
Elsey modified the design in the last month after receiving feedback from the same committee in August.
The exterior, designed by architecture firm Prime Design, has a more uniform color scheme than a month ago, according to the staff report.
The new plan has 14 fewer units and fewer bedrooms (454 versus 477 originally). The planned 69-foot height is eight feet taller than originally proposed.
The 43,068-square-foot project would have 147 underground parking stalls.
Chris Elsey, a developer from Elsey Partners, couldn’t be reached for more information on the project.
Elsey and Prime Design are affiliated companies. Manhattan, Kan.-based Elsey started in 2005 and has built more than 2,000 beds in Manhattan, Kan.; Stillwater, Okla; and Lincoln, Neb.
Sam Black
Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal
