Housing, Redevelopment Projects Get $12 Mil in Grants

ST. PAUL, MN-The Metropolitan Council recently approved $12 million in grants for a variety of housing and redevelopment projects across the Twin Cities. Altogether, the grants for affordable housing, transit-oriented development and redevelopment site environmental cleanup will leverage more than $280 million more in other government grants and private investment, according to the Met Council, a Twin Cities planning agency.

The recipients include:

* Burnsville’s Heart of the City project, which will create a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use downtown, will get $2.5 million.

* In Hastings, the Guardian Angels Redevelopment will receive $558,350, and an affordable housing development called the Hastings Marketplace Family Townhomes will receive $297,600.

* A $500,000 grant will help build Hidden Ponds, an apartment complex in Apple Valley.

* $302,046 for pollution removal to help redevelop the former Cenex headquarters in South St. Paul.

* Minneapolis was awarded $4 million for to five projects, more grant money than was granted to St. Paul. Among the five projects is a 145-acre mixed-income housing development on the site of a former public housing development.

* Just under $1 million of the grants will go to three projects in St. Paul, including $534,000 for contaminant removal in the James J. Hill warehouse in Lowertown, which is being converted to condominiums, and $350,000 will go to the Phalen Village Main Street project, and $86,000 is earmarked for contaminant removal to make way for parking expansion at 750 Pelham Boulevard in St. Paul. City officials say the nearly $1 million in grants the city will receive will help spur more than $50 million of additional investment. Since 1996, the program has awarded $27.2 million to 45 mixed-use or transit-friendly developments, leveraging about $907 million in additional investment, according to the council. Another $31.4 million in clean up funds has gone to 77 redevelopment projects. And $10.2 million, generating about $230 million in additional investment, went to affordable housing projects.