Source: http://www.startribune.com, January 8, 2016
By: Erin Golden

Money will help fund cleanup on Minneapolis sites being turned into offices and more.

Six Minneapolis development projects are set to get a combined $1.8 million in state funding for environmental investigation and cleanup work.

The projects were selected, along with a dozen others around the state, for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Developments’ grant program for pollution cleanup.

Minneapolis projects making the cut include a site at 40th Street and Hiawatha Avenue, which developers are cleaning up after it was polluted by a sash-and-door manufacturing operation and turning it into a 78-unit affordable apartment complex. That project will get $103,099, which will be matched by the developer and other grant funding.

Others on the list are:

• A former gas station at 43rd Street and Upton Avenue in southwest Minneapolis, which is being converted into 29 apartments at 6,000 square feet of retail space. The project, which is expected to create 35 new jobs, will get $230,755.

• The ABC Industrial Development building, a former wood yard and electronics warehouse in the North Loop, which is being redeveloped into a six-story building with 143 apartments and 16,730 feet of retail space. The project will get $159,882 and is expected to create 72 new jobs.

• The downtown Kraus-Anderson Block, once used for auto repair and metal refinishing, which will house a new Kraus-Anderson headquarters, a 17-story residential building, a 148-room hotel and a brewery. The state will provide $761,106 for the project expected to create 102 new jobs.

• The T3 office development in the North Loop, which will receive $441,885 to clean up a former freight depot and parking lot. The project is expected to create 227 new jobs.

• A site at Target Field Station once used as a lumberyard that will become a 10-story retail building and is expected to create 338 new jobs.

In a news release, DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben said the grant program is one of the state’s most effective tools for encouraging redevelopment.

Other grant recipients include St. Paul’s Cleveland Avenue and Fillmore development sites, Fridley’s former Naval Industrial Reserve Ordnance Plant, Washington County’s Woodbury Redevelopment Site and several outstate sites.