The apartments at Malcolm Yards are set to break ground later this year with recent funding from Hennepin County in the next stage for the Prospect Park development.
The Market Station building will break ground in December and will be a seven-story building with 210 market-rate units. The Flats at Malcolm Yards is set to break ground in early 2022 and will be a six-story building with 143 workforce, or affordable housing, units. Both projects are set to finish in summer of 2023.
The apartment complexes are the next phase in the development after the food hall at Malcolm Yards opened.
At The Flats, all units will be offered for people who make 60% or less than the median income. The affordable housing program is under section 42, which means the developer gets tax credit for building affordable housing.
Wall Companies, the developers of the Malcolm Yards site, received a grant of $201,500 on Aug. 10 from Hennepin County for soil remediation. Jeff Ellerd, a developer at Wall Companies, said the grant would be used for cleanup and to address soil contamination from the past industrial usage of the land.
“The building has underground parking, so as part of the excavation for the building we will segregate and dispose of the contaminated soil that’s fallen as part of that exercise,” Ellerd said.
John Wall, president of Wall Companies, said when the site is completed, there will be a trail that will connect to a nearby park. He added that the trail will be a small piece of the missing link of the Grand Rounds, a system of trails and parks that loop around Minneapolis.
Chris Meyer, District 1 Park Board Commissioner, said he is envisioning parkland near the Malcolm Yards area and to fill in the missing link of the Grand Rounds.
“The current Grand Rounds has a G or C shape,” Meyer said. “[The plan is] to turn that G or C shape into an O shape, and this parcel is along that connection.”
Wall said Wall Companies has owned the land for over 10 years, and they originally bought the land to build a life sciences building for the University of Minnesota, but did not have enough interest in the project. However, he said that he had recently discussed with developers about possibly building a life science building on the land.
“[The area around Malcolm Yards] has really grown up,” Wall said. “There’s a whole social component to the place. It makes it seem a lot more vibrant so I think our life sciences buildings have a much better shot.”
