Hot Property: Graves Uptown condominiums and retail in Minneapolis

Type: Mixed-use

Condominium units: 9

Retail: 1,074 square feet

Developer: Graves Hospitality

Architect: Collage Architects

Details: Seven months after it was first introduced, a mixed-use residential/retail project from Graves Hospitality recently won unanimous approval from the Minneapolis Planning Commission.

The new building will be going up on what is now surface parking and the site of a single-family home just west of the popular Lucia's Restaurant on W. 31st St. at Holmes Ave. S. Graves Hospitality purchased the quarter-acre property in March for $1 million.

In a break with the wave of rental apartment-building that has characterized the Twin Cities' multifamily development pattern of recent years, Graves Uptown's residential component will instead consist of nine luxury condominiums arrayed across five upper floors. Four of those floors will have two condo units each, while a single unit will take up the entire top floor.

The ground floor, meanwhile, will feature a residential entry lobby, fitness and club rooms, as well as a bit more than 1,000 square feet of retail space. The commercial space was originally intended to be a restaurant, but those plans were set aside in favor of storefront retail uses after neighborhood concerns were raised over traffic and parking pressure that a potential eatery would generate.

A tenant for the proposed retail space has yet to be lined up, Collage Architects President Pete Keely said in a Dec. 14 project narrative.

Don Jacobson is a St. Paul-based freelance writer. He can be contacted at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com.