Apartment complex A/C problem

Scorching heat is making life miserable for some at Heritage Park apartments in north Minneapolis. FOX 9’s Mike Manzoni explains the situation.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Tenants at a north Minneapolis apartment complex are struggling to stay cool as broken air conditioning and other problems remain unresolved during another day of high temperatures.

Tenants at Heritage Park turn to fans as heat rises

What we know:

Several tenants at Heritage Park are relying on fans to keep cool, but temperatures inside the apartments are still reaching the 80s.

“How I’m trying to keep cool is with this fan. I have another fan in that room,” Eddie Robinson, a tenant, told FOX 9 on Monday. “It’s an oven.”

Beyond the lack of air conditioning, tenants are facing other challenges inside and outside the building.

Some apartments have mold and dirty floors, while the exterior shows broken staircases and boarded-up windows.

Repairs and funding struggles at Heritage Park

The backstory:

The court-appointed receiver, Minnetonka-based Certus Financial, said it is waiting for a $5.1 million grant to help with repairs. There is $500,000 in city grant money available, but it can only be used for furnaces, which does not help tenants during the summer heat.

The property receives $85,000 each month from the federal government to help maintain the 200 public housing apartments.

Despite this, the complex is still losing $250,000 every month, according to the firm’s manager, Will Haase.

The property has 440 units, with nearly half set aside for public housing. More than half of the units are vacant, worsening the property’s financial situation.

Haase said his firm is working on patching 30 roofs to address leaks and has already replaced 168 furnaces. While there are still a couple of hundred open work orders, that number is down from more than 2,000 when the receivership began six months ago.

When asked if razing the complex could be an option, he said that is “never not in play.”

After community pushback, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously decided to cover about $630,000 in costs that property owners were originally required to pay to support the development of People’s Way, a former gas station turned memorial in George Floyd Square. Council members also voted down a contract with Minnesota Agape Movement, which submitted a plan for the development and was selected by Mayor Jacob Frey in May. 

Edwin Reed had to close his business in George Floyd Square due to drops in revenue in July of last year. Reed said he was surprised to hear about the special assessment handed out.

Reed said the fact that the cost was to be offloaded to locals upset him. He believes the project should not be the people’s responsibility, but the city’s.

“We didn’t start it, they did,” Reed said. “To make us pay for it is just another slap in the face to me, my business was decimated up there.” 

Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley lives near George Floyd Square. She said the city council’s original decision was unfair, and she’s glad the council took steps to reconsider. 

“I think it’s great that the city reevaluated the assessments that would have been placed on residents and businesses,” Conley said. “When we set a levy that collects property taxes, it’s to do things like take care of the roads that we drive on.”

Self-proclaimed “Tourist Interrupter” of George Floyd Square and Minneapolis resident Marquise Bowie said the neighborhood has gone without city investment for far too long. 

Bowie is a founder of the Agape Movement, a 40-year-old grassroots community safety organization based in South Minneapolis. Since Floyd’s death, he and others in the organization have tried to support the community in any way they can, a commitment that Bowie said he hasn’t seen from city officials.

“It’s been six years. Nobody’s really investing in our neighborhood without any fires. We’ve seen fires burn down buildings to the gravel that are built back up,” Bowie said. “We don’t have nothing permanent that lets people know anymore about George Floyd or about the community at large.” 

Following the city’s purchase of Peoples’ Way in 2023, the Minneapolis City Council received submissions from four teams that pitched their development ideas for the People’s Way. The Agape Movement was chosen by Frey earlier this year, but the city council voted against the decision, opting to reconsider other applicants. 

South Minneapolis resident Dee Thomas said restrooms are a need at George Floyd Square. 

“They want people to come through here and do tours here, but there’s no place to use the bathroom,” Thomas said. “Where can the people that are here in the community day by day, watching over the square and keeping the people safe, get to use the restroom and wash our hands?” 

South Minneapolis resident Roxy Drake sat alongside Thomas on a metal chair at People’s Way. She said she wants to see a recreational center built. Community members may soon have the development they’ve been hoping for, but struggles to agree on a developer bring further uncertainty to the project.

Conley said, given the survey distributed to community members, Rise and Remember was the more favored option. 

“What you saw the city council do was deny the mayor’s recommendation and move forward with the recommendation of the people who were surveyed and who said Rise and Remember best represents what we want to see at the site,” Conley said. “I think the council was really honoring the voices of residents.”

While it may appear that for one developer to win the bid, another one must lose, Conley said there is plenty to go around with the 38th Street THRIVE Plan, a plan created by community members and the city of Minneapolis to drive engagement on 38th Street between Nicollet Avenue and Bloomington. 

“We should be listening to the residents, and I think we need to really fund the 38th Street THRIVE Plan so that other development can happen,” Conley said. “One of them could be what Agape has presented. Why not both?” 

The timeline for construction of the square remains the same, with the project set to be done in late 2027, though development action remains unclear. However, Minneapolis City Council members Soren Stevenson and Jason Chavez have made continuing efforts with the project, frequently meeting with Frey about what is best for People’s Way.  

Though Stevenson declined an interview with the Minnesota Daily, a member of his team said the next steps are still undecided and will be publicly announced when ready. 

Bowie said he wants the council to move forward with Agape Movement’s plans for the square.

“We’ve been here, we were open to working with whoever to try to build a better community,” Bowie said. “We don’t want to stay in activism mode forever and kick the can down the road. We want to start building.”