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~. ~ ~ ~ ~~ .~ ~ 3, Star Tribune September 18, 2001 Tr~ist bril~lgs eity affordable l~loi~sirlg al~d a vvl~lole lot ~Tlore Agrand opening Thursday celebrated the near-completion of a significant housing development in the Elliot Park neighborhood just southeast of downtown Minneapolis. The $29.5 million project, called East Village, has competitive market-rate housing and, just as important, affordable housing - a need cited by city mayoral candidates. .7 East village "looks great, it is great; it has such a fantastic impact on Elliot Park and the community," says Alan Arthur, president of the nonprofit Central Community Housing Trust (CCHT), project developer. Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton told the grand opening that she wants "to see project like this in all 13 wards." Council Member Joan Campbell, defeated in the recent primary, tearfully said East Village would be "part of my legacy: ' Ted Mondale, Metropolitan Council chairman, called East Village " a dream become reality." Mostly the trust, now 15 yeazs old, restores run-down, troubled and historic buildings. It now owns or controls more than 1,100 housing units in or near downtown. Many are affordable to low-income tenants who help the city's economy by working downtown. East Village's 179 units include multistory apartment buildings and connected townhouses -and more. Already, it has a coffee shop, with a restaurant and minimarket to follow. Its 350 underground pazking spaces will reduce neighborhood parking problems. East Village is opposite the city's Elliot Park at the intersection of 8~` St. and l ltt' Av. S. The trust was started after Convention Center construction in the 1980s displaced nearby residents. It has undertaken nearly two dozen projects that preserve important housing in or near downtown. Among them is Paige Hall, 727 5~` Av. S. Paige Hall's 51 efficiency and 18 single-bedroom apartments have had affordable rents of $205 to $40 a month. Its renters last year had an average income of $15,764. Another is the historic 70-room Continental Hotel, just off the Nicollet Mall on S. 12th Street, which serves adults often formerly homeless. • In cooperation with the University of St. Thomas, which is displacing housing to expand its Minneapolis campus, the trust will add three housing floors to its 34-room Lamoreaux building on 7~' St. and 1St Av. N., where rents have ranged from $210 to $280. St. Thomas is providing $1 million toward the expansion. And the trust is working with the nonprofit Hope Community of south Minneapolis and for-profit entrepreneurs to redevelop the area around Franklin and Portland Avs. The cost estimate is $45.2 million. 8