The city of Minneapolis and Sherman Associates are discussing a plan to replace Fire Station 1, which serves downtown, on a block where the developer wants to build two new apartment complexes and a parking ramp.
Sherman last summer revealed its desire to build a 22-story apartment tower and six-story apartment building on the block bounded by S. Washington Avenue, Portland Avenue, S. 3rd Street and S. 5th Avenue. It said at the time that it hoped to reach a deal with the city to relocate the fire station, a two-story structure at 530 S. 3rd that dates back to 1909.
Since then, the firm has worked with an architecture firm that specializes in public-safety buildings and reached the outline of a deal with the city. Under it, Sherman would buy the existing station, build the new one, sell the new one to the city, tear down the old one and then construct the apartment building and parking ramp.
The six-story building would be built along S. 3rd, including on the corner of the existing station and adjacent to the new one. Its 90 units would be designated as "affordable" housing that are rented at below market rates.
"In a lot of ways, the rest of the development is dependent upon the new fire station getting built just because we would put the affordable housing where the existing fire station is going," Shane LaFave, a development director at Sherman, said Monday.
"If the existing fire station stayed or something didn't work out with the city, we'd have to retool the whole development and refigure things and see how all that would work," he said.
The developer recently unveiled a new rendering of the new station, which will be 20,000 square feet in size and positioned on the corner of S. 5th Avenue and S. 3rd Street with its front facing S. 5th.
The firm will go to the city's planning commission with formal plans this fall, LaFave said.
