Business & Tech

Linden Corner Project Dead—At Least For Now

Councilmember Betsy Hodges urged City Council to oppose the project.

The —at least in its current form—appears to be dead, shot through the heart by all five members of the Minneapolis City Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee present on Thursday afternoon. Partly at the urging of Councilmember Betsy Hodges (Ward 13), councilmembers voted unanimously to grant development opponents’ appeal of to let the project go forward.

Councilmembers said the project was out of scale for the neighborhood, wasn't supported by enough transit capacity, and seemed like an "end-run" around the zoning process because it didn't try to get the corner of 43rd and Upton re-zoned to a denser category. 

“I’m absolutely overjoyed,” said development opponent Chris Maddox. “This was the right decision for the community.”

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Following the vote, Maddox and other development opponents poured out of the meeting room, hugging each other and grinning ear to ear. But hanging over the celebration was a sober reality.

“There is now a rent in the fabric of Linden Hills,” Hodges said, lamenting the anger between neighbors generated by the project.

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That hole has to be closed, Hodges said, if the community is to move forward. People on both sides of the issue have alleged their houses have been subject to eggings and they have been subjected to verbal intimidation over their stances.

After the meeting, developer Mark Dwyer started working the crowd of development opponents who had packed the meeting.

“I’m sad” about the decision, Dwyer told Patch. “Mostly, I’m apologetic for putting something before the committee and the community that didn’t align with what people felt was appropriate. I thought there was more support (for the project) than there was.”

Dwyer, who owns around 25 percent of the site outright, was upbeat that a new project might rise from Linden Corner’s ashes.

“We have a great opportunity with this corner to start a dialogue (with the community) to see what we can do,” Dwyer told Patch, echoing calls from Councilmember Gary Schiff (Ward 9) to start a community conversation and create a new plan delineating just what kind of development Linden Hills wants to see on this corner and in other parts of the neighborhood.

“I think there’s hope for some sort of development. Its prime land,” said development opponent Gail Wells, who lives less than a block from the site.

“Something that would be in scale (with the neighborhood) and be fun," she added. "I’d be willing to work with Mark on that.”


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