MINNEAPOLIS—When the Opus Group began making plans several years ago to build a giant new luxury apartment building in this city's downtown core, company officials knew it was a risk. “It required very forward thinking because we had to achieve rents that had not yet been achieved,” Dave Menke, president of the locally-based Opus Development Co., LLC, tells GlobeSt.com.
As reported in GlobeSt.com, the company just completed The Nic on Fifth, a 26-story, 253-unit luxury high-rise apartment complex, the first of its kind to be built in the downtown core in decades.
Menke says that tenants are paying at least $1350 per month for the smaller apartments and up to $8000 per month for the 26 penthouse units. The first occupants moved in on September 12, and the building, located on the corner of Fifth St. and Nicollet Mall, is already 60% leased.
“We did question whether there would be 26 renters for the penthouse units,” Menke adds. However, the demand has been as gratifying as that for the smaller and less expensive apartments. “We are ahead of schedule, even on the penthouses.”
The company was relatively conservative with its predictions about when it would finish leasing up the tower, Menke says. Eighteen months was originally considered sufficient time, roughly by late fall 2015, “but we'll probably be ahead of that.”
“The demographics that are behind this are very real and very powerful,” he adds. Younger residents of the Twin Cities, along with empty-nesters either looking to establish a second home or just take advantage of the amenities available in the downtown, “aspire to be in an urban environment.”
One of the most important qualities tenants will enjoy here is the quick access to all of those downtown amenities. The development has a light rail platform and shares a sidewalk with Nicollet Mall, an eleven-block pedestrian mall. It is also connected to downtown Minneapolis' public skyway system.
“We learned of the extraordinary demand for high-rise living in the area when we executed downtown condo projects” such as the Carlyle, built in 2004 just two blocks south of the Mississippi River--on the southwest corner of 3rd Ave. South and 1st St. The recession, of course, put further condo projects on hold, but the demand for apartment rentals just keeps growing.
In fact, Opus is early in the planning stages for two additional luxury rental towers similar in scale and quality to Nic on Fifth. “We believe in the depth of this market. We're still very bullish.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
