Now that CSL Plasma has found a new location in Uptown, CPM Companies can start building its 11-story Stadium Village apartment complex.
The Minneapolis City Council approved rezoning Friday to allow the plasma center to relocate. CPM spearheaded the move to make way for its WaHu Stuent Housing project, the largest proposed apartment building in the University district.
The $85 million project is planned to have 333 units, 404 parking spots and a number of retail spaces on the ground floor with numerous amenities.
“It’s a beast,” CPM Companies owner Daniel Oberpriller said.
CSL Plasma marketing director Scott Newkirk said the arrangement “worked out really well” for both companies.
But many University of Minnesota students and community members who donate regularly may not be able to make the trek.
Physics senior Tyler Wick said news of the plasma center leaving campus is frustrating because he walks there.
“I won’t use it anymore, that’s for sure,” he said. “I will not travel to Uptown. I mean, I like this one because it’s two minutes from campus.”
Oberpriller said it’s “imperative” CPM breaks ground on WaHu this February with hopes of finishing construction by July 2015.
“We are definitely excited about the opportunity to get this wrapped up,” he said. “We’ve been trying to relocate [CSL] for a very long time.”
The project was delayed for two years, Oberpriller said. In Minneapolis, plasma centers are restricted to a zoning type linked to pawnshops, gun stores, sex shops and exterminators, which makes them difficult to relocate.
Ward 2 Councilman Cam Gordon, who represents the Stadium Village area, voted in favor of the rezoning because he said the label isn’t appropriate for plasma centers since they save lives and serve the public good.
“Many people use it as part of their income, so it made sense to have it within the city,” he said.
When relocation was first floated last December, CSL sought to move just a few blocks to a new space in Prospect Park. Several neighborhood residents and business owners opposed the move, saying the center attracts crime and generally hurts the neighborhood.
Oberpriller said CSL’s lease, which runs until August 2014, required his company to find its new location, lobby for rezoning and build them a new facility.
“This is just one step. The other step is the hard part,” he said. “I have to build this building for them in a record amount of time and at a record speed at the quality they are expecting, [so] now we need to start sprinting.”
The current CSL Plasma center is around 9,000 square feet with 80 employees, Newkirk said. The new facility at 304 Lake St. E. will be about 12,300 square feet.
Newkirk said the relocation was two years in the making.
“When we were looking for property in Minnesota, we had very limited options,” he said.
Gordon said CSL Plasma came to him asking for help relocating and that it may have left the state if it wasn’t given a new location.
“Mostly I was trying to solve a problem somebody else came to me with,” he said. “It’s a relief they found another suitable location.”
Gordon said both the Prospect Park East River Road Improvement Association and the city’s planning commission approved of the rezoning.
WaHu is planned to have 27,000 square feet of retail space, including 60-foot-wide patios for restaurants. Oberpriller said he expects the lots facing the stadium will be “big-scale” eateries and bars.
“The site is designed for creating a connection to the stadium as well as the University that people will want to live at,” Oberpriller said.
