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Minneapolis to convert empty offices downtown into housing
Minneapolis is already providing $6.9 million in tax increment financing to support one $92-million project.
MINNEAPOLIS — With more people working remotely, many offices in downtown Minneapolis are vacant. Now, city leaders are sharing plans to fill the empty space.
“This whole concept of remote work, where people are working from home in some form, was probably inevitable but it got expedited by like five to eight years by COVID-19,” Mayor Jacob Frey told KARE 11. “I’m a believer that we’re going to get back to somewhere around 80 percent occupancy but that remaining 20 percent, we’re going to have to change and the change should be, among other things, to residential.”
The first housing project is underway. Developer Sherman Associates is converting the old, 13-story Northstar Center East office tower into 216 residential units. The city is providing $6.9 million in tax increment financing to support this $92-million deal, which also includes state and federal historic tax credits.
Most units will be “workforce housing” for those who make at least 80 percent of the area median income.
“For teachers and police officers,” the mayor explained, “people that are working that are already contributing greatly to our city and we want to make sure that they can afford to live here.”
Around 20 percent of the units will also be “affordable housing” for those who make 50 percent of the area median income. Construction for is set to last 16 months and should be move-in ready by late summer of 2024.
While it’s unclear how many office spaces in total are vacant downtown, Minneapolis Downtown Council reports employee occupancy is 64 percent back to where it was before the pandemic and says the number of people living downtown is growing.
“It’s very positive and is a great example of the kind of strategy that when you find the right building and you put the right financial package together it can really be a new life for a building,” MDC president and CEO Steve Cramer said of the Northstar project.
Other office buildings that will convert into housing are yet to be announced but Frey says “it’s not going to end with Northstar East.”
“There’s going to be a number of other buildings that are making this transition,” Frey said. “We intentionally set the city up 10, 15, 30 years ago, where all of the commercial would be in one place, all of the office would be in one place, and then all of the residential would be in a different place. That’s not what’s working. What’s working is when you’ve got this beautiful diversity of use and people all in the same neighborhood.”
“If you look at the neighborhoods that are the most successful throughout the country, North Loop being one example, they have a beautiful diversity of use,” Frey continued. “Sure, you’ve got the business woman but you’ve also got a cook. You’ve got someone else that’s been working the night shift at an industrial plant. You’ve got someone else who is walking their dog and the stroller with the other hand. With that, you get this dynamic that’s exciting and that’s what a city is about.”
The U.S. Army says 19-year-old William E. Colby was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950. His remains were identified just this year using DNA technology.
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly 74 years to the day since he was officially deemed Missing in Action during the Korean war, a Minneapolis soldier finally reached his final resting place.
The burial at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, which came with full military honors, brought closure to the family of Army Corporal William Colby, but it couldn’t bring back the family – and memories – that have long since passed.
“I was little,” said Jinny Bouvette, Corporal Colby’s cousin, who is also among the few surviving family members who ever met him. “We were about nine years difference when he joined the service, I was ten.”
For years, Bouvette says her memories of her cousin Billy, were always clouded by sadness by what happened just months after he deployed to fight in the Korean War.
Colby was just 19 years old and serving in the Korean War when he was declared missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950, after his unit was attacked by the Chinese People’s Army as they attempted to withdraw from the Chosin Reservoir.
“They figure that’s where Billy was,” Bouvette said, pointing to a green circle on a printed map of the Chosin Reservoir. “That’s where he was the last time that he was reported (alive).”
The young soldier could not be recovered following the battle, and the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death on Dec. 31, 1953.
“We never thought of him as being killed in action, we always thought of him as just missing,” Bouvette said. “My aunt, she always thought he was alive somewhere.”
His fate was finally confirmed for family members by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on May 2, 2024, after Colby’s remains were identified from 55 boxes of remains returned to the U.S. by the North Korean government in 2018.
The process required a DNA analysis of his remains and a sample from a living relative before it could be matched and verified.
Bouvette says representatives initially tried to reach her, but it wasn’t until learning that her aunt and cousin had submitted those DNA samples that she realized what was happening.
“At first I thought they were just people trying to scam old people, and I wouldn’t answer them,” she said, with a laugh. “But eventually, that’s how I found out that he was really, really gone.”
Just a few months later, the Army’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch helped return his remains, along with a jacket adorned with a full accounting of his honors.
“He didn’t get them when he was alive,” Bouvette said. “So I told them to put them in the casket with him, so he’s got them now.”
She did decide to hold on to one of his awards for herself, Colby’s Purple Heart.
“I just can’t tell you what it feels like,” she said, looking at the military medal in her hand. “It fills your heart right up. It just fills your heart right up.”
Yet it can’t quite compare to seeing his procession finally reach its end.
“My heart is so full… it is overflowing,” she said. “I just can’t… I have no words. I’m just glad that he’s here, and to know he’s home now. He’s home.”
JayCee Cooper filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting after the organization banned her from participating in women’s competitions.
SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The conversation inside the Minnesota State Capitol on Tuesday was focused on sports, but a different type of competition was taking place inside the court chambers. Two opposing sides are vying for the Minnesota Supreme Court to rule in their favor in the case of Cooper v. USA Powerlifting.
Transgender woman and athlete JayCee Cooper filed discrimination charges with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in 2019 after USA Powerlifting banned her from participating in women’s competitions. In 2021, Cooper filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting.
The lawsuit claims USA Powerlifting’s ban on transgender women is “an outlier among international, national and local sports organizations,” pointing to the International Olympic Committee’s framework regarding inclusion of athletes and their gender identities.
The case made its way through the state’s courts over several years before landing in the hands of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Oral arguments took place Tuesday morning, in which Cooper was represented by Gender Justice attorney Christy Hall and USA Powerlifting was represented by attorney Ansis Viksnins.
Gender Justice is a legal nonprofit organization based in St. Paul. In a press conference Tuesday morning, the organization’s legal director Jess Braverman said USA Powerlifting is violating Cooper’s rights under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
“Every Minnesotan deserves the freedom to pursue their dreams without fear of exclusion or discrimination,” Braverman said. “Ms. Cooper was denied that right, solely because she is transgender.”
Viksnins, the attorney representing USA Powerlifting, said Cooper was excluded from women’s competitions due to her biological sex, not gender identity. “It’s not discrimination based on gender identity. That’s the problem for Ms. Cooper’s case: that the differentiation here was because of her biological sex, not for gender identity.”
In 2021, USA Powerlifting launched its MX category, providing a separate division for athletes of all gender identities. “It doesn’t solve the problem of transgender women being barred from women’s competitions, which is the issue here,” Braverman said.
There is no clear timeline as to when the Supreme Court will makes its decision on the case.
The portion of the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge over I-94 is coming down.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The portion of the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge over I-94 is coming down this weekend.
Demolition started in August but they’ve been doing one section at a time. MnDOT says to expect jackhammering around the clock.
City engineers first noticed cracks in its supports in 2014 and limited its capacity. But it’s taken 10 years for the city to come up with the $91 million it will take to build a new one, and it won’t be finished until 2027.
I-94 will be closed this weekend between 35E and Highway 61 in St. Paul.
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