Old Rainbow Foods store in Minneapolis will be transformed into school, senior apartments

Address: 2912 28th Av. S., Minneapolis

Type: Mixed-use

Size: 73,000 square feet

Architect: Winther Johnson Robinson Architects, Collage Architects

Developer: Wellington Management

Details: After gaining city approvals, St. Paul-based Wellington Management is renovating a former grocery store near the Lake Street-Minnehaha Avenue intersection into a mixed-use building anchored by a charter school.

The firm also indicated a new senior affordable housing complex is in the works for the site that used to be a parking lot for Rainbow Foods along 27th Avenue S.

The grocery closed in 2014 and two years later Wellington purchased the vacant building and 6-acre lot for $5.35 million, according to Hennepin County records. Shortly thereafter the firm announced its re-use plans, under which the 70,000-square-foot building will be divided into three areas for lease.

The largest area, 57,517 square feet, will be the new home of the Universal Academy Charter School, which is aiming to move from St. Paul in time for the 2017-18 school year. A new entry and an almost 19,600-square-foot second story will be added for the school.

David Wellington, director of acquisitions and development for Wellington Management, said it also applied for Met Council grants to help fund a six-story building on the northwest corner of the lot. It would include about 90 units of affordable senior housing with 15,000 square feet of first-floor retail.