ST. PAUL, MN-Minneapolis-based apartment developer Dominium plans to hold a kick-off event Oct. 26 to celebrate the start of the $95 million renovation of part of the old Schmidt Brewery site. The project includes three owners working on renovations of different parts of the 15-acre site, developed as Cave Brewery in 1855.
Owen Metz, a senior development associate for Dominium, tells GlobeSt.com that his firm is buying eight of the 15 acres, including two large historic brewery buildings, and plans to build 250 artist live-work loft apartments at the property. The apartments would be a mix of true-loft and semi-loft properties, all affordable, he says.
He says the company is working with the state to gain a large amount of historic tax incentives for the redevelopment. The brewery, once the seventh largest in the country, closed as the Minnesota Brewing Co. in 2002. The property was sold in bankruptcy of the owner, Gopher State Ethanol, which had a plant on the site.
“This site has been through a number of failed developments,” Metz says. “We want to hold this event to let people know that this is really going to happen this time.”
He says the Fort Road Federation (as West Seventh Street on the site used to be called Fort Road) has released plans to build a mixed-use project on part of the rest of the site. Also, a limited liability corporation owns a small 70,000-square-foot empty warehouse on the site, and they are interested in leasing it out, Metz says.
For his part, Metz says there is demand for the loft user. “The Twin Cities are a very arts-driven community,” he says. “We have done similar projects to success here and in St. Louis, and we’re using the same model here.” The company’s Carleton Artist Lofts in St. Paul were renovated from three brownstone warehouses in the University-Raymond commercial historic district, and rent from $865 per month for a studio to $1,094 for a two-bedroom apartment.
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