A Twin Cities developer this week presented plans to replace a popular neighborhood restaurant with an apartment building the Minneapolis Planning Commission’s Committee of the Whole (COW).
Alex Gese wants to develop a five-story, 82-unit rental building at what’s now the site of Curran’s restaurant, a popular neighborhood dining spot known for its all-day-breakfast, vinyl booths and fresh-squeezed orange juice at the corner of 42nd Street and S. Nicollet Avenue in the Kingfield neighborhood.
Dennis Curran said that after 72 years in business, the pandemic is forcing him to close.
“The virus really cut into our business,” he said. “And I’m 68 years old and can’t do a third of what I used to. If I were younger I’d consider riding this out.”
Curran’s parents started the business four years before he was born. The first year they served hamburgers, hot dogs and pop, he said. The second year they added French fries.
“I spent most of my time here at the restaurant working 70 to 90 hours a week,” he said. “I’ve been here so long and know so many people it’s very difficult.”
Curran said he’s a big fan of Gese’s plan especially because the new building will include community space. The land and buildings are under contract and won’t close for several months, but he’s running of PPP money and plans to shutter the business within seven weeks and retire.
The first floor of the proposed building would include a lobby, community/club room and fitness room and a dog wash room in the lower-level parking garage that would include 36 enclosed parking spaces on the site. There would also be a rooftop patio area.
That stretch of Nicollet Avenue is a mixed-use corridor with residential, retail and service-oriented businesses. Though the city encourages developers to include street-level retail in residential buildings, it’s not a requirement in that area.
Gese said he’ll consider several suggestions based on feedback from the committee, which doesn’t vote and makes no binding decisions. Much of the discussion at the Thursday meeting focused on the absence of commercial space in the building, which is directly across from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park.
Gese is already heavily invested in the area and says he has a deep understanding of the retail scene in the area. He has ownership in commercial buildings that house the Nighthawks Diner & Bar and Five Watt Coffee. He said he’s already discussed the plan with the neighborhood development group and will next discuss it with neighbors.
“We will make some modifications based on feedback,” he said. “I want to be respectful of the COW and really think about what they had to say.”
The planning commission committee is one of the first formal steps in the city approval process. Gese is seeking a variety of variances and conditional use permits including slightly increasing the height of what’s already permitted in the area.
Plans call for units that range from studios to three-bedroom apartments including some that would affordable to low-income households under Minneapolis’s recently adopted Inclusionary Zoning Policy.
In addition to the dedicated affordable units, Gese said the project was designed to provide modern, apartments at a competitive and attainable price point. Not including commercial space, which has become increasingly difficult to lease, will help make rents more affordable, he said.
“Especially now with COVID-19 it feels like to program retail space there would be probably not be the highest and best use for the building,” he said. “There are so many storefronts in the neighborhood, we don’t want to take away from the viability of those buildings and their owners.”
Rents haven’t been set yet, but Gese said price points should be affordable to people who work in the service industry in the area.
Principal architect Evan Jacobsen of Tushie Montgomery Architects said in a statement the building was designed to be “both sensitive and complementary to the existing context of the neighborhood.”
While the five-story mass has a strong presence along the adjacent park when viewed from the north, the southern portion of the building steps down in mass and backs further from the street to ease transition to the existing built environment.
Material include brick, metal panel and fiber cement siding that helps “visually reinforce the building ‘stepping up’ to the intersection and ‘stepping down’ as it nears the adjacent properties.”
“This movement in massing and materiality helps to create a strong presence to anchor the corner of 42nd and Nicollet, while also responding to the adjacent properties in both scale and setback,” he said.
Though other parts of city have more available apartments than renters, Kingfield is underserved and hasn’t seen any significant multifamily construction in decades.
Gese has two other projects in the city under construction including KOLO, a 41-unit building he’s codeveloping at 36th and Bryant Avenue South. The other is Linden Flats, another 41-unit rental building at 44th and Beard in the Linden Hills neighborhood.
“I like the more boutique-style buildings,” he said. “It’s more appealing to me personally, they fit into these neighborhoods better.”