PHOTO TIMELINE: Workers Dig Deep on Gallery Flats Project

Check out highlights from the project’s history and see photos of its progress.

On Monday, workers were up early hauling away dirt from a growing hole in the ground out of which the Gallery Flats project will rise Developer Klodt Cos. plans a two-building project that will have a total of 163 apartments—and create nine jobs, increase the tax base by $480,525 and leverage $24.4 million in private investment, according to the Department of Employment and Economic Development. The project launched when the city snapped up the former Park Nicollet site on Eighth Avenue after the health care provider closed its clinic in 2009. Eighth Avenue is central to the city’s long-term plans because of the Southwest Light Rail Transit stop planned just across Excelsior Boulevard from the corridor. The city wants to create an enticing…

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PHOTO TIMELINE: Gallery Flats Seeing Big Changes Despite Snow

Check out highlights from the project’s history and see photos of its progress.

The Park Nicollet and Lutheran Digest sites in downtown Hopkins look radically different just three weeks after crews started demolition on the buildings that once occupied the site. Despite the snow, the buildings are gone, dirt work has begun and cranes are busy lowering materials into place at the Gallery Flats project. On Tuesday, workers were hard at work placing beams into the ground. Developer Klodt Cos. plans a two-building project that will have a total of 163 apartments—and create nine jobs, increase the tax base by $480,525 and leverage $24.4 million in private investment, according to the Department of Employment and Economic Development. The project launched when the city snapped up the former Park Nicollet site on Eighth …

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Which Nearby Hospital Has the Longest Emergency Department Wait?

A Medicare database shows how hospitals across the Twin Cities—and the nation—compare for care.

If you go to the Fairview Southdale emergency department, it’ll take nearly an hour on average before you’re seen by a health care professional. On the other hand, those who go to North Memorial will be seen in less than 15 minutes. Those results can be seen in a new tool called Hospital Compare that lets people examine key measures of efficiency for 4,000 Medicare hospitals across the country. “With precious little fanfare, Uncle Sam last month rolled out a big, fat database with seven measures comparing a service that many people—healthcare providers and patients alike—consider the most critical any hospital can provide,” Cheryl Clark, senior quality editor for HealthLeaders Media, wrote Thursday. Data collected in 2011 and early 2012 …

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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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DEED Awards $50,000 to Gallery Flats Project

The money will be used to clean up arsenic and asbestos on the old Park Nicollet site.

Just a day after the Metropolitan Council announced a $15,000 grant for the Lutheran Digest portion of Hopkins’ Gallery Flats development, the Department of Employment and Economic Development announced it’s awarding $50,000 in cleanup funds for the Park Nicollet portion of the project. The money will be used to clean up arsenic and asbestos on the 1.81-acre site at 815 First St. S., according to a Thursday DEED news release. Developer Klodt Cos. plans a mixed-use project on the property and the neighboring Lutheran Digest site that will have a total of 163 apartments. The development will create nine jobs, increase the tax base by $480,525 and leverage $24.4 million in private investment, according to DEED. Hennepin County, the Met …

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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 ›

Met Council Awards Hopkins $26K for Lutheran Digest Site

The money will investigate what cleanup is necessary for the site.

Hopkins has once again collected on a grant that will assist with downtown development. The Metropolitan Council on Wednesday awarded Hopkins $26,200 to help with cleanup at the Lutheran Digest site on Ninth Avenue that’s to be part of Klodt’s two-building, mixed-use development. The money is part of $2.4 million in “brownfield cleanup funding” that went to 13 redevelopment projects in seven communities across the metro. “The Council awards cleanup funds twice a year and they are an important tool we use to create jobs and promote economic development,” Council Chairwoman Susan Haigh was quoted in a news release. “Resources we’re allocating this funding round will help clean up nearly 40 acres, create or retain 700 jobs, increase the net …

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What Will the Park Nicollet Project Look Like?

Developer Klodt Inc. shared preliminary plans with the Hopkins City Council on Tuesday.

The Park Nicollet project took a major step forward June 5 when the Hopkins City Council approved a development agreement with Klodt Inc. to construct two buildings on the Eighth Avenue property and the neighboring Lutheran Digest site. On Tuesday, Klodt met with the council again to discuss further details of the project, including their vision of how it will look. John Bell, Klodt’s vice president of construction and development, cautioned that details could still change. But the vision offers a good look at what planners are going for with the project. Below are some highlights that were discussed. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. *** The Eighth Avenue streetscape The apartments The amenities The process   Stay up…

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Hopkins Approves Agreement With Klodt on Park Nicollet Site

The city will sell the site to Klodt for as much as $1,120,000.

Hopkins and Klodt Cos. at last have an agreement for the much-anticipated mixed-use development on Eighth Avenue. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here tonight,” John Bell, Klodt’s vice president of construction and development, said at the Tuesday Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting where officials signed off on the package. Under the terms of the development agreement, Klodt will pay the city $10,000 per unit for the old Park Nicollet site at 815 First St. S. That price is capped at $1,120,000 if the company acquires the Lutheran Digest building at 31 Ninth Ave. S.—a site for which it has already signed a purchase agreement. Redevelopment of the Park Nicollet site has been a major goal of the city since the health care …

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Klodt Arrives at Deal on Lutheran Digest Site

The planned purchase greatly expands the footprint of a downtown project previously limited to the Park Nicollet site.

Klodt Cos. has reached an agreement to purchase the old Lutheran Digest site on Ninth Avenue—increasing the number of units in the downtown’s centerpiece project by 55 percent. The developer planned a 64-unit building and a 40-unit building when all it had was the 1.2-acre Park Nicollet site on Eighth Avenue. Now that it’s signed a purchase agreement for the .6-acre Lutheran Digest site, Klodt plans to build 71-unit and 90-unit buildings, said John Bell, Klodt’s vice president of construction and development. The company expects to close on the property, located at 31 Ninth Ave. S., when it closes on the city-owned Park Nicollet site at the end of the year. Planners envision Eighth Avenue as a “pedestrian seductive” corridor that will …

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