Hot Property: Artspace Lofts project to proceed in Hastings

Address: Northeast corner, 2nd and Tyler streets, Hastings, Minn.

Type: Mixed-use

Live/work units: 37

Retail: 2,200 square feet

Developer: Artspace Projects Inc.

Architect: UrbanWorks Architecture

Details: Minneapolis developer Artspace Projects Inc. is set to proceed this summer with a mixed-use project on a city-owned parking lot in downtown Hastings.

The Hastings City Council last month approved the permits and plans for the Artspace Hastings Lofts, an $11.7 million building with 37 units of affordable live-work housing for artists. It is also part of the town's push to revive its business district.

The nonprofit developer, which in 2014 opened the similar Jackson Flats in northeast Minneapolis, bought the one-acre lot last year. Hastings' officials sought a developer to integrate the property into its "Mississippi Riverfront Renaissance" plan, which stretches along downtown to the recently rebuilt Hwy. 61 bridge.

When completed next year, the new building will offer studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments for artists whose incomes are between 30 and 60 percent of the area median. It will feature 2,200 square feet of ground-floor retail space at the corner of 2nd and Tyler streets.

The project also aligns with hopes to extend mass transit services to the city: It would be across the street from a park-and-ride facility for a future Red Rock Corridor bus rapid transit or commuter rail line to downtown St. Paul.