West Broadway Crescent Adds 54 Units of Affordable Housing to North
 by Tiffany Glasper
In January, we reported the good news about The West
Broadway Crescent housing project, which broke ground in November 2013, amid
one of the worst winters in recent Minnesota history.
Days upon days of frigid temperatures put the project behind
schedule, but progress continued nonetheless. With only one other high density
housing project developed in North Minneapolis in recent years, West Broadway
Crescent is a much needed and welcomed addition to the landscape.
This project is one of four planned for the area near the
intersection of Penn Avenue North and West Broadway. This is the identified
epicenter of the 2011 tornado that destroyed hundreds of homes and numerous
businesses.
Today, the project is more than 50% complete and is expected
to be ready for occupancy in late December 2014. It will offer 54 units with resident
services provided by CommonBond Communities and other amenities on the ground
floor.
Long Range Planning Launches Public Realm Framework Blog
 by Lacy Shelby
Long Range Planning is excited to be
launching an awesome blog for the Downtown Minneapolis Public Realm Framework. This will be the City’s first Public Realm
Framework (PRF), a guiding policy document for the management of pedestrian
experience within a key geographic area. The purpose of a PRF strategy is
to provide unified guidance to inform and coordinate the work of public and
private entities that shape the public realm. It is intended to inform
capital planning, site plan review, and public/private partnership toward the
coordinated enhancement of the public realm. It will be an up-to-date,
content-rich, accessible log of a joint public realm initiative with the
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.
Blog entries will summarize data,
process, observations and progress, along with including announcements and
events. An archive of maps, photographs, sketches, and videos will be available.
As a transparent and accessible platform, the blog will enable feedback and
input from stakeholders.
Check
it out, beginning August 18th, at www.MinneapolisPublicRealm.org.
Seward Co-Op Coming to Bryant and Central Neighborhoods
 by Kristin Guild
On July 12, the Seward Co-op broke ground at their new Friendship
store site at 38th Street and Clinton Avenue S. The groundbreaking
celebration was the culmination of a longstanding community effort to bring
quality food choices to the Bryant and Central neighborhoods. Community leaders
over a decade ago explored forming a grocery co-operative to serve the
neighborhoods. More recently, a new set of leaders formed the Carrot Initiative
to develop materials to recruit a grocery. It was the Carrot Initiative that
alerted the Seward Co-op to the former site of the Friendship Baptist Church,
quietly for sale when the congregation moved further east on 38th.
There was significant CPED staff involvement in the project: the sale of one of
the parcels needed, facilitating a rezoning from residential to commercial use,
intensive site planning work to ensure a high quality facility on a tight,
short block frontage site, and negotiating a local hiring job linkage
agreement. The development is entirely privately financed. The store is
expected to open in late 2015.
Zoning 101
 by John Smoley
The City’s Zoning Code ensures development remains
sustainable, desirable, and predictable.
Your Zoning team administers that code.
The Building Code may keep you safe (by ensuring walls and roofs don’t
collapse, for example), but the Zoning Code will keep you happy by doing things
like separating incompatible uses; regulating the height and density of
development; and ensuring adequate parking (bikes and cars).
When staff have planning questions, consider us your “go-to”
source. We’re available and informative,
being the planning representatives to the Customer Service Center counter and 311. We’re tough &
thorough, processing all zoning enforcement cases and land use application
inspections. We’re fast, handling all
administrative planning reviews (which include heritage preservation
applications). And we’re triage
specialists. If we can’t review your
request or answer a question, we’ll usually know who can. If you need assistance with zoning, give us a
call, we are here to help!
HPC Interns Study Past to Plan for Future
 by Jessica Enwesi, STEP-UP Intern
This
summer, through a study founded by the National Park Service Grant, Andrew
Frenz and Alex Young received the chance to work with the Heritage Preservation
Commission (HPC) to identify street car developments worthy of heritage
preservation protection.
Alex
Young, a graduate student at University of Minnesota, has spent the last six weeks
learning the ins and outs of the HPC by evaluating numerous wrecking permits and
writing reports to nominate properties for designation. Andrew Frenz, an
Illinois Institute of Technology undergraduate, has been helping with the 1 to
4 Dwelling Unit Zoning Code Text Amendment, which will allow for more context
sensitive housing development.
The
purpose behind this particular study is to showcase an important part of
Minneapolis history. While shining a light on underrepresented designations and
an unrecognized generation, it will also give new generations a piece of
Minneapolis’ shared heritage.
Technology, Information & Innovation
Printer Upgrades
Time flies. Has it been five
years?
Yes, it’s been five years since
CPED installed the Toshiba Multi-Purpose copier printers. The lease is now up
on our current printers and it is time for their replacement. Over the next few
weeks, we will be working on the process to install the replacements. We are
expecting this work to be completed in September 2014. Look for more
information on this as this timeline draws near.
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