1975-2015: 0 Wedge houses wrecked for apartment buildings.
February 2015-February 2016: Wedge houses wrecked for apartment buildings:
2320 Colfax
2316 Colfax
2808 Colfax
2743 Dupont
2809 Girard
2815 Girard
2821 Girard
2424 Lyndale
*2008 Bryant
*slated for demo soon
Michael Lander and At Home Apartments brought the first two down for what is now Motiv Apartments. But all the rest are the work of Drew Levin and Danny Perkins of KLP Realty (a.k.a. D&D Reality Holdings, DDMZ Real Estate, Lotterman-Madan, 2817 Girard Avenue, Farkas Wagner).
Along with their financial partner, Steven Kalin, Levin and Perkins own dozens of properties in Minneapolis, including 26 in the Wedge:
1008 W. 26th Street
2344 Aldrich Ave. S.
2008, 2113, 2612 Bryant
2612, 2621, 2808, 2814 Colfax
2521, 2557, 2612, 2644, 2701, 2725, 2743 Dupont
2812 Fremont
2700, 2709, 2715, 2809, 2815, 2821, 2828, 2832 Girard
2424 Lyndale
Do their names sound familiar? That may be because Drew Levin and Danny Perkins are the stars of HGTV's "Renovate to Rent" series, described on the network website this way: "Real estate agent Drew Levin and his partner, contractor Danny Perkins, have been friends since college and now run a successful renovation business together. They strategically buy old or foreclosed homes in desirable locations, but rather than flipping them for a quick profit, they Renovate to Rent. Using specific design plans, they transform these homes to attract top rental dollar. Even though they’re young, they already own and manage over 70 homes, and the number just keeps growing."
But instead of flipping seven of these "for a quick profit," they are demolishing them and building apartment buildings for even bigger profits.
Last year, KLP wrecked this 1880s duplex at 2743 Dupont:
And replaced it with this four-story thing that towers over its neighbors:
Then they wrecked this bungalow on 2800 block of Girard and the two houses to its north for an apartment building now under construction:
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| 2821 Girard Ave. S. before demo by KLP |
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| The living room of 2821 |
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| The new DUMP, er, KLP apartment building on 2800 block of Girard |
The next wrecking is planned for 2424 Lyndale Ave. S. The replacement appears to be a clone of the 2743 monstrosity.
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| 2424 Lyndale before demo |
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| UPDATE: 2424 Lyndale being wrecked, March 7, 2016 |
KLP's most recent project, their second Wedge apartment building, is slated to replace the house at 2008 Bryant Ave. S. Plans for the new building show a four-story stucco box containing 10 units with small, cramped rooms, covering most of the lot. Despite the fact that the building will house at least 10 tenants and as many as 20, plans call for only two parking spaces. That's because the orthodoxy of Minneapolis City Planning insists that everyone should be walking, biking, or taking mass transportation, not driving. If you are a tenant with a car, you'll just have to join the melee for spaces out on the streets of the Wedge.
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| Bummer: Your car is wedged in so tight, you can't get your bike onto your car's bike carrier. At 4 p.m. today I walked the 2800 blocks of Fremont and Girard. There was not one open parking space on these blocks. |
KLP's demolitions and replacements with new higher-density apartment buildings have been done with the approval of the City of Minneapolis, notably of 10th Ward Council Member Lisa Bender. Again, planning orthodoxy demands that the City provide medium- and high-density housing for the 50,000 new residents it hopes to attract. But for some reason, this high density housing winds up being built in the Wedge by demolishing and rebuilding, rather than on the North Side, where scores of lots remain vacant. And the new Wedge apartment units are far from affordable; instead, the new ones replace ones that did have modest rents.
When will the wrecking end in the Minneapolis? It's hard to say. Perhaps when this fantasy-driven high-density building craze ends in a crash, perhaps when the area zoned for higher density is filled. What area is this? Take a look at this zoning map. Any building outside the pale yellow area is potentially in danger. The areas most in danger are the Wedge apex north of 26th Street and the area just north of the Greenway.
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| Endangered: the remaining houses on the 2700 and 2800 blocks of Girard and other blocks around 28th Street. |
For decades the neighborhood association repeatedly petitioned the City to downzone the area north of 26th. It hasn't happened yet, and given the current political climate, certainly won't in the near future. The City wants more young affluent suburbanites and well-to-do retirees and fewer of the motley assortment of renters of modest means.
This afternoon the City Council sent a clear signal to neighborhoods in approving the Graves hotel at Emerson and Lake in Uptown: Whatever developers want, they get. The City has scrapped the Small Area Plan, zoning, and environmental concerns in favor of a development which, at six-stories, is way out of scale with the surrounding houses. It will certainly lower the property values and attractiveness of the houses around it, but who cares? Density is all.
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| The rising sun illuminates the six-story hotel coming to Emerson and Lake. No traffic, no traffic lights, no nearby buildings, no trash. Just an empty horizon full of promise. |
What's your vision for the Wedge and other Minneapolis neighborhoods? If the City and KLP get their way, we'll see more big, chintzy boxes out of scale with the neighborhood and fewer of the old houses that have been the trademark of the Wedge and other Uptown neighborhoods for decades.
"Tied to the tracks and the train's fast coming
Strapped to the wing with the engine running
You say that this wasn't in your plan
And don't mess around with the demolition man
Tied to a chair, and the bomb is ticking
This situation was not of your picking
You say that this wasn't in your plan
And don't mess around with the demolition man."
--from "Demolition Man" by Sting 1993
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| First to go down: 2320 Colfax, the Orth House |
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