Editor's Notebook

What Contaminated Sites Are in Your Neighborhood?

The Hopkins properties that received cleanup grants last month are just two of the numerous properties that need some help before they can be redeveloped.

The metro’s conaminated sites got a little more attention than usual last week when first the Metropolitan Council and then the Department of Employment and Economic Development announced grant packages, including grants for the Gallery Flats project in downtown Hopkins. That followed a grant announced in June for the same project. The Park Nicollet and Lutheran Digest sites that make up the Gallery Flats project aren’t unusually contaminated, though—at least not in the smoke-belching-factory way that way most people think of. The sites are just two properties among hundreds that have health issues that must be taken care of before they can be redeveloped. The grant money for the Lutheran Digest building, for example, will take care of …

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Met Council Awards Gallery Flats Project $15,000

The money will be used for cleanup at the old Lutheran Digest building.

The Gallery Flats project at the former Lutheran Digest building is one of 14 redevelopment projects to receive a piece of nearly $2.4 million in Livable Communities brownfield investigation and cleanup grants, the Metropolitan Council announced Wednesday. The Met Council approved $15,000 for the Gallery Flats project to help with soil remediation and asbestos abatement at the old Lutheran Digest site at 31 Ninth Ave. S. Developer Klodt Cos. plans a mixed-use project on the property and the neighboring Park Nicollet site that will have a total of 163 apartments. The Met Council awards about $5 million a year in brownfield cleanup money, which is only available to the more than 90 metro-area communities that participate in the council’s …

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James Warden

7:13 pm on Thursday, January 10, 2013

Good points all around. To elaborate on Sally's point, one point they keep making in the LRT meetings is about how the housing preferences of seniors and young adults are now converging. According to surveys, both groups want to be in communities where they can live, work and play. Both want easy access to transit. Both want to be in walkable communities. That's what Hopkins is trying to do with …   more ›