City plans to extend closing deadline for long-vacant 628 Franklin building

City officials are moving to extend the closing deadline for one of the city's longest-vacant buildings, a hard-luck former apartment building on E. Franklin Avenue that's seen several failed redevelopment attempts.

The deal for the 1904 building was supposed to have closed by mid-January under the term sheet that accompanied City Council approval of the proposed sale of the land to Mark Orfield, who owns nearby apartments.

But Cherie Shoquist, a city development project coordinator, said she's recommending that the closing deadline be administratively extended and still expects a closing this month.

"It's a little slower than we anticipated," Orfield said this week.

Orfield said he's has taking on Tom Dillon as a project manager for the building's planned renewal. He originally proposed 14 market-rate apartments. "We may add a fewer more units but it's not sure," he said.

"We do think that they will move ahead on the project," Shoquist said. Orfield retained Dillon to help work the project through city requirements for design review, permitting, zoning and civil rights efforts.

"With an old building like that, it can always take longer than expected," she said. "There are more contract requirements than buying a tax-forfeit property from Hennepin County."

Dillon has worked as project manager on much larger projects such as the Carlyle and Grant Park condominiums in downtown Minneapolis. Orfield has no recent development history with the city's Department of Community Planning and Economic Development, the agency said in recommending him as the best among four proposals for rehabbing the gutted building. But his family has been a Minneapolis landlord since 1939.

The city has agreed to sell the building to Orfield for $75,000, and he agreed to create a finished building worth about $1 million. The building has been vacant for around 20 years and has been on the city's vacant building registration list for 12-1/2 years. That makes it the most senior apartment building on that list.

The building sits at a strategic location adjacent to the lengthy $67 million redevelopment of the Franklin-Portland Avenue intersection by community nonprofit Aeon and Hope Community.