A $49 million project with housing and shops will reshape a North Loop block that now is half-filled by a surface parking lot.
Howard Bergerud, who has developed hundreds of Walgreens stores across the country, plans to develop a six-story building with 150 apartments atop first-floor retail space on a block bounded by 2nd Avenue N., 1st Street N., 2nd Street N. and 1st Avenue N. The 1.6-acre project also includes three century-old brick buildings that Bergerud has acquired and plans to rehab into offices and retail. The project is being called the Foundry.
"It should become a very charming street," Bergerud said.
The block is part of the Warehouse Historic District's Nineteenth Century Warehouse Area, where the buildings tend to be narrower and shorter — mostly two to five stories — than many of the larger and taller warehouse buildings that were used for storage and manufacturing.
The existing buildings haven't traded hands for decades and Bergerud said that he's been negotiating for several years to acquire them. With buyers paying record prices for properties in the North Loop, the competition has been fierce. County records show that in late October entities associated with Bergerud paid $2.1 million for a small two-story building at 121 First St., which the county values at $631,000. He paid $7.36 million for the parking lot, which the county values at $1.71 million.
The building at 125 1st Street N. is an 1884 brick building that shows its age. Known as the Commutator Brass Foundry Co., it's been converted to offices and retail. The art gallery and boutique that are in that building will stay, but one of two old sheds adjacent to the building will be demolished. One of those structures will be restored, including a smokestack that is perilously tilting toward the sidewalk.
As the neighborhood has been transformed by warehouse conversions and apartment and office buildings, this block has remained largely unchanged for years. It's anchored by the Aria Events Center, an imposing Gothic building that was designed by Cass Gilbert, who designed the Minnesota State Capitol. And it's home to the Alliance Française, which has been a mainstay on the block for decades. Neither of those buildings are part of Bergerud's plans.
Bergerud is a veteran in this part of the city. He was part of the partnership that transformed the historic Whitney mill building into a boutique riverfront hotel in the mid-1980s. Just upriver, he partnered with Paul Klodt to develop the Riverwest Apartments overlooking the St. Anthony Falls spillway. Both buildings have since become condominiums.
