Front cover: A view of the bell tower at Redeemer Lutheran Church on Glennwood Ave. in Minneapolis
Inside front cover: A Victorian slyled mixed-use building in the Cathedral Hill neighborhoodin Minneapolis
Purpose
The purpose of our trip to Minneapolis was to serve as a basis to learn more about the possibilities of the acquisition of a portfolio of land and structural assets, along the Glenwood Avenue corridor, in Northeast Minneapolis. The contents of this report will serve as documentation of the three days spent in Minneapolis, from May 7 – May 9. Additionally, this report will also serve to offer insight into the meeting participants, as well as the pros and cons of any potential deal.
Youthprise has been one of the promising organizations within the city and the Closing the Gaps Network, led by Living Cities. Under the leadership of Marcus Pope, the organization has become one of the leading institutions of its kind, in the state of Minnesota.
Brian Smith, the Director of Performance Management, and Innovation for the City of Minneapolis, has been a strong supporter of the goals and objectives of Living Cites, as it seeks to further the Closing the Gaps Networks goals within the Twin Cities region.
Pastor Kelly Chatman is the retired former pastor and visionary of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Northeast Minneapolis. The church also launched a non-profit decades ago called Redeemer Center for Life (or RCFL), which in years past, has been the engine of most of the community related efforts of the church. The non-profit owns all the properties in the portfolio of assets, except the church site. More on this later in the report.
After consummating this 3-day fact finding mission, it is a fact that there is significant support for a deal to be made for the portfolio of properties offered by Redeemer Lutheran Church and RCFL. There are also ample resources to be negotiated with key stakeholders, the goal being to leverage collective assets, e.g., land, incentives, zoning variances, infrastructure cost mitigation, financing, and more, to ensure the greatest amount of long-term strength and stability. There is a high level of confidence that the vision is within reach.
Thank you for being entrusted with serving Youthprise on behalf of Living Cities. Your feedback and further input are most welcome
Kindly
J.D. Lee Chief Executive Principal Regionerate The JDL Group
The trip to Minneapolis began with my arrival on the evening of Sunday, May 7. It was an impromptu decision to go, given the fact that the call from Brian to come and assist was received on Friday afternoon, May 5. With that being said, the discussions with Brian, prior to arriving, helped inform me on how to best prepare for what was ahead–and that being the acquisition of several sites, located in one of the Northeast corridors of Minneapolis, which fit the criteria of what was outlined in their Minneapolis Workplan. This summary report will offer a synoptic perspective of the ensuing days.
7:20 PM - Upon arrival to MSP Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, picking up a car, and driving to the Best Western/Normandy Inn & Suites, where I lodged, Brian and I met at the hotel to then ride over to a local restaurant for a casual dinner and discussion.
As we entered the front door, and were seated, I lightheartedly said to Brian “You know this place kind of reminds me of the restaurant scene in The Godfather movie, where Michael Corleone sits down to have dinner with Sollozzo (a rival mob boss) and McCluskey (a dirty local cop), in order to negotiate a deal, but he ends up knocking off both of them.”
Brian looks around, looks back at me, and we both break out in hysterical laughter. I said “Brian, you didn’t bring me here to knock me off, did you? The laughter continued as we both, like clockwork, recalled how the scene played out in the movie, and how it ended! Santiago, if you’re reading this, being the movie buff you are, you would have loved it. For a moment in time, we were like the black version of Siskel and Ebert!
8:00 AM - The morning began with a quick trip downstairs to the lobby of the hotel to grab some coffee before heading over to the Youthprise offices. It was a cool, overcast day, and a proper cup of coffee was a great wat to start the day. Brian offered to pick me up, so I had a few extra moments to mentally strategize before heading into several back-to-back meetings.
From my experience, it is always a great opportunity to learn hidden gems about the goings on of a community, by taking time to meet and speak with those who work at the food and beverage establishments. Many times, they have the best take on a variety of topics concerning the people, places and things that are relevant and important. And for what we are about to do in this community, it will require a deep understanding of what’s most important to the Minneapolis BIPOC community.
9:00 AM – Brian and I arrived at Youthprise offices, ready for our 9 am central meeting with the Livng Cities team, along with several of the Minneapolis team. We discussed among a few things, the upcoming site visit in Minneapolis, the potential of having stakholders at the table who value the initiative we are undertaking and would be inclined to fund it, and the eventual site acquisition opportunity. The conversation shifted towards the site acquisition for a moment
as we discussed multiple way to maximize the value of the opportunity that was in front of us. Marcus did a masterful job of sharing how it would creat enourmous value to the youthprise efforts, and Brian chimed in on the historical manner in which the deal opportunity came into being. I added a few points regaring the portential of this site have some of the earmaks of what and Urban village could look like in Northeast Minneapolis.
But above all of that, the brightest moment of our call was when Fayise introduced us to her new baby girl, and put her on camera for all of us to see. She’s the latest jewel among the many human treasures within the BIPOC community of Minneapolis. And with a mother as wonderful, kind, and intelligent as her mother, the sky is the limit to what her potential will be.
10:00 AM – The Zoom meeting with Living Cities went very well and we covered a range of topics, all pointing towards having a sharpened sense of readiness for the upcoming site visits with all the cohort cities. I believe we are moving in the right direction, and having penciled out deals ready to go for funders, will be a job that Linda and I will work towards until we meet that objective. More to come in follow-up reports.
11:00 AM - The next part of the day was spent preparing to head over to our meeting with the stakeholders from Redeemer Lutheran Church, a historically relevant congregation and beacon of hope for several decades, located in the Harrison Neighborhood of Minneapolis, on Glenwood Avenue. Alongside the church, is a stand-alone non-profit organization called Redeemer Center for Life (or RCFL), which in years past, has been the engine of most of the community related efforts of the church. The non-profit owns all the properties in the portfolio of assets, except the church site. More on this later in the report.
11:30 AM – The meeting took place at the mixed-use facility where Milda’s Café sits, in the adjacent open space called the Living Room. The Living Room is the space where many youth activities sponsored by RCFL were held. At the table were: 1) Marcus Pope, CEO of Youthprise, 2) Pastor Kelly Chatman, retired pastor and visionary, Redeemer Lutheran Church and current Youthprise board member, 3) Brian Smith, Director of Performance Management and Innovation, City of Minneapolis, 4) Denetrick Powers, Co-Founder of NEOO Partners, 5) Leon Dixon, Executive Director at RCFL, 5) Jen Collins, current pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 6) Aster Washington, board member at RCFL, and 6) J.D Lee of The JDL Group, representing Regionerate, on behalf of Living Cities.
During the meeting, the discussion began quite uneventful to be frank, with everyone giving a short, abbreviated version of their name, organization, and why they were at the table, that is until the Mr. Dixon, Executive Director of RCFL giving the ½ hour long, full resume/life story version.
Because of the length of his dissertation, it struck Marcus, Brian and I as being a futile effort to shine a light on himself, but in reality, coming off as pointless to all the rest of us (more to come on this later in the report). Thus, I did my best to steer the discussion back towards the original vision of Pastor Chatman when he and the rest of the leadership of Redeemer started the nonprofit and began acquiring the land assets surrounding the church. From this point on, the discussion seemed to become more targeted towards the stated intent of the meeting.
Once we began to discuss intents and objectives of the two main parties a bit more, I suggested that we look around the grounds, to take photos/videos, and then reconvene for a follow-up meeting to get more details on the details of a possible deal structure the next day Everyone agreed this was a good path to continuing the conversation.
2:30 PM – After our meeting convened, and we took photos, videos, Brian and I headed back to the hotel to debrief on the way, before reconnecting later that evening to attend an event sponsored by Health Partners, a regional health provider whose mission is to “To improve health and well-being in partnership with our members, patients and community.” Marcus was the keynote speaker, with the theme being Empowering Youth to Become Resilient Leaders.
6:30 PM – Health Partners, as mentioned previously, held a spectacular event, of which Marcus Pope was the keynote speaker. The event titled Empowering Youth to Become Resilient Leaders, was created to help the public learn more about the transformative power of youth in creating equitable community change.
Perspectives and reflections from local youth, with Keynote speaker, Marcus Pope, President of Youthprise helped create a broad range of youth perspectives on the local landscape of health, wellness, and resilience. Marcus’ presentation was titled: From Resiliency to Leadership: Engaging Youth in Promoting Health Equity. Needless to say, he knocked it out of the park!
It was a wonderful experience, hearing all the youth speak and share their stories. It was also quite an honor to watch Marcus Pope in action. Outside of being a giant in the space in which he works, he is quite a public speaker. I truly believe if he ever has the desire to seek higher public office, the sky will be the limit to how high he can ascend.
Day 3 | Tuesday May 9
11:00 AM - The third day began with me rescheduling my flights to ensure that I would be able to make the reconvening meeting at Youthprise. Done. Since, the previous day we all agreed to meet at Youthprise, at 11.30 am. I left a little early to get coffee at Youthprise, only to find they did not have any. Ironically, Pastor Chatman showed up a little early as well, so he suggested that he show me a local coffee house not too far away and we could ride there together and make it back for the meeting.
Why is this important? Because the previous day, during the meeting, it was discovered that Pastor Chatman is originally from Detroit MI, and is the nephew of one of my father’s close friends and fellow pastors in the Mid-Michigan area. He started calling out names of people that I know on a very personal level, and I called names of some people that he knows on a very personal level. Come to find out, all three of the men in the room the previous day, were from Detroit, MI., and we all knew many of the same people. We were all just ecstatic!
During the car ride to the coffee shop, I got a chance to hear more of Pastor Chatman’s heart and vision for the work he started decades ago. It was an honor to hear from the visionary, what he saw, and to think, the vision is within reach.
We finally got back to the meeting, and got it started, Fayise and Wokie joined, along with the same attendees, minus one, from the previous day. They chimed in on several important issues that relate to Youthprise’s ability to be a great partner for the deal. They were both very impressive in their roles. In addition, we were able to take a deep dive into outstanding debts on the properties and learn more about the loans, any tax liens, current tenant payment structures, and other important topics of discussion for a deal to take place.
Once there was enough of an indication that there was decent data to proceed, I respectfully requested that the room be cleared for Marcus and his senior colleagues at Youthprise to speak in private with the folks from Redeemer to discuss financials. The room clearing included: Denetrick, Brian, Fayise, and myself.
As the room was cleared, the conversation between Youthprise and Redeemer continued. I had a short debrief with Brian and offered apologies to young Denetrick, as he felt somewhat slighted about being asked to leave the room. However, he is not a part of either Youthprise nor Redeemer, he was merely there out of respect for the person who asked him to come the previous day, and because he is a success story of the RCFL youth program. The fact that we cleared the room was a good decision, as it allowed Marcus to take the lead, as he should.
As I left the building and headed towards the airport to catch my flight back home, I felt a sense of accomplishment, in that we came and helped secure a process by which Youthprise could pursue the legal, financial and political assets they need to surround the assets that have been placed in their hand by Living cities, and strengthen the capital base to acquire and redevelop the property in Northeast Minneapolis. It should be noted that the church has voting authority over the non-profit. And as it turns out, the current ED of RCFL was being overly embellishing of his resume, because under his watch, there has been little, if anything done to right the ship.
Discoveries
Fact 1 – Pastor Kelly Chatman is the former pastor and visionary of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. He is also one of the leading advocates of community transformation in the country. Rev. Chatman is sought by church and nonprofit organizations as a teacher and speaker in the areas of multi-cultural leadership, community engagement and congregational revitalization.
In March of 2020, Kelly became the first director for the new nonprofit, CLNE (Center for Leadership and Neighborhood Engagement). CLNE mobilizes congregations and leaders as powerful neighborhood-based agents for positive social change. Offering transformative learning experiences, we aim to strengthen and inspire leaders and congregations. programs, coaching and training to connect and support congregations and nonprofits and their neighborhoods. Learn more at www.clne-mn.org.
Fact 2 – A significant amount of work will be needed to renovate the existing buildings, which have been left unmaintained for quite some time. While walking through one of the commercial structures on the main corner, it was clear that it was once a thriving local coffee shop, but now it is vacant and in need of a complete overhaul. The good news is, it appears (on its face) to be structurally sound, and the bones seem to still be good. Pending a proper study, it could easily be redesigned and then renovated into a thriving commercial space again.
Fact 3 - The same applies for the 16-plex multi-family structure which sits adjacent to the corner commercial structure and separated by a corridor lot from the church. According to the ED of RCFL, it possibly may be designated as a historical structure, which brings with it its own pros and cons. However, we will need to do a serious structural analysis of the foundations, roofs, and floor beams to have a better understanding of its viability as a keeper, or a tear down. But with 16 units of housing, if we can certify it as structurally sound, it could be a great place to anchor affordable community housing.
Fact 4 – Part of the vision of Pastor Chatman, was that these collective pieces of property would be utilized to serve the needs of the community. One of the amenities he desired to see remain is the green space (shown in photos below). It does not have to remain in its current condition, but rather it could be woven into a greater design concept, that would allow for outdoor gatherings and other events. Proper use of green space is essential in any urban design and development, and there is ample space to incorporate more structural assets, while at the same time, upgrade the current green space.
Fact 5 – An aerial view of the properties offers a top-level perspective of the current mix of uses for all the structures within the portfolio of assets. (See color / arrow legend below images). What one will see is that there is currently a block and a half of approximately +/- 2 acres of land and building assets. As a caveat, the church is not a part of the current discussion, regarding the acquisition of assets. However, they are not opposed to it being part of the portfolio, with certain sureties and use considerations that would need to be in place.
Zoning & Ordinances
Minneapolis uses a set of rules called the Minneapolis Zoning Code to make sure homes and businesses are safe and look nice in their surroundings. The rules cover: 1) How big buildings can be, 2) What types of businesses can open in different areas, and 3) How much space to leave between buildings. The city is divided into different areas, or zoning districts. Each area has its own rules on what you can build and how it is used.
Some zoning districts allow one kind of use, like residential or industrial. Most zoning districts allow a mix of uses such as: 1) Residential, 2) Office, 3) Commercial, and/or 4) Industrial Zoning rules must be adhered to when building something new or making changes to an existing property. A public hearing may be required before starting.
CLICK HERE for more about Minneapolis Zoning, or click the following link: https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/business-services/planning-zoning/zoning-maps/about-the-zoning-code
CLICK HERE for the entire Minneapolis Code of City Ordinances, Title 20, or click the following link: https://library.municode.com/mn/minneapolis/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=MICOOR_TIT20ZOCO#TOPTITLE
Zoning districts and maps - The zoning regulations specify the uses allowed and development standards for each zoning district. A zoning district may either: 1) Primary district or 2) Overlay district. The zoning maps show the location of each primary and overlay zoning district.
The properties that are a part of the deal package, on Glenwood Ave., are in the Plate 12 District. Click the images below to be redirected to the current updated maps on the city of Minneapolis website.
Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development
Minneapolis uses Euclidean zoning, (single-use zoning or use-based) The origins are derived from the Euclid vs Ambler U.S. Supreme Court case. The zoning policy applies to an entire plot. For example, an apartment building housing 10 people would normally be situated on a plot zoned for multi-family housing. The building could not be built on land zoned for any other use, period
As for the FAR (Floor Area Ratio), which is the ratio of the total area of all floors of a building to the area of the lot. The following formula is used: A 1,000 sq ft single story home on a 4,000 sq ft lot has a FAR of .25 (1,000 sq ft/4,000 sq ft). A four-story building, with each floor being 2000 sq ft, on a 4,000 sq ft lot, has an FAR of 2 (2,000 sq ft x 4/4,000 sq ft). Height restrictions will vary (35, 45, 60 ft) based on uses for residential, commercial, or billboard signage structures.
