Affordable senior housing revived at 600 Main St. SE

The Blueprint

A team led by Lupe Development Partners and Wall Cos. wants to bring more than 100 units of affordable senior housing to a triangular parking area near the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, the latest version of a yearslong effort to redevelop the site.

On Thursday, the Minneapolis Planning Commission Committee of the Whole reviewed plans for the five-story, 104-unit building at 600 Main St. SE. The project would require a comprehensive plan amendment, rezoning and other approvals.

Jess Olstad, a city spokesperson, said in an email that the committee took no formal action.

“The next step for the project team will be to conduct public engagement around their potential comprehensive plan amendment, and to prepare their land use applications for submittal,” Olstad said.

Steve Minn, vice president and chief financial manager of Lupe Development, said Friday that the project received “very positive feedback” from the committee.

“We’re just going to proceed with the rest of our application, which will be in the next week or so,” said Minn, who added that the proposed location is a “perfect site for housing” and that “senior housing is a need.”

A comprehensive plan amendment would require Metropolitan Council review. If the approval process goes well and financing comes together next year, the project could break ground in 2028, Minn said.

A 58-space “principal parking facility” currently occupies the 37,401-square-foot development site, which is framed by Sixth Avenue Southeast, Main Street Southeast, and a railroad property, according to a city staff report.

The project would primarily offer one-bedroom units, though the mix would also include some two-bedroom dwellings and efficiencies. Thirty-nine stalls of underground parking are also planned.

Located near the Stone Arch Bridge trailhead in the Mississippi River Critical Area Overlay District, the project would be “compatible with the surrounding neighborhood architecture,” according to a narrative submitted on behalf of the developer.

The plan includes site improvements such as structured parking and pedestrian spaces, and a new public trail, which would connect to existing Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board trails in Father Hennepin Bluffs Park.

According to the developer’s narrative, the project “represents a reinvestment in a privately owned, undeveloped parcel that is not used for park purposes and is not planned for acquisition.”

The project would align the property’s “land use, built form, and Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area Overlay District designations with the surrounding urban context and applicable regulatory framework,” the narrative states.

Wall Cos. and Lupe Development Partners, doing business as Bluff Street Development, have long wanted to redevelop 600 Main St. SE. In 2023, the developers pitched a plan for 80 affordable housing units on the site.

The developers’ history with the site goes back as far as 2009, when they proposed separate plans for a 98-unit and a 79-unit apartment project, as previously reported. In 2010, Bluff Street sued the city after the City Council rejected the plans. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2011.

When development efforts first started, the Mississippi River Critical Corridor Area rules and regulations had not been defined, and “there was a lot of angst in the community” about what those regulations would be, Minn said.

Those regulations are now “well defined,” clearing the way for development, he said.