At Wells Fargo site destroyed in riots, construction finally underway on affordable housing complex

A much-lauded $66 million complex with much-needed affordable housing, a park and business hub is finally being built on the site of the Wells Fargo branch that rioters set on fire in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.

Construction work began Tuesday, with backhoes busting up the parking lot and concrete curbs. A formal groundbreaking will take place Thursday with business and government officials who are hungry for more signs of progress in the challenged Lake Street corridor worst-hit during the riots.

The project, led by housing nonprofit Project for Pride in Living (PPL), is expected to be a game-changer for the city.

"This is really exciting. We need the affordable housing and needed to replace a massive empty parking lot with increased density," said Lake Street Council Executive Director Allison Sharkey. "PPL is really taking on that risk of development [after] Wells Fargo made a decision really early on that they were going to do right by the community by not just replacing a bank with a bank. They have added so much more."

After four years of planning and complicated fundraising, the six-story Opportunity Crossing will rise over 19 months, promising hundreds of construction jobs and becoming the largest rehabilitation project on Lake Street since the riots.

The 132,000-square-foot building will offer a blend of 110 affordable, one- to four-bedroom apartments, a Wells Fargo branch with a drive-thru, underground parking, plus four "commercial condos" that will be owned by entrepreneurs of color.

The site is at Lake and Nicollet by the old Kmart site and near the epicenter of the riots. The project adds to other signs of progress in the area such as the rebuilt Highland Plaza Shopping Center across the street and the lot ready for development where the Kmart once stood.

Sharkey has estimated that $120 million worth of building improvements are planned for Lake Street this summer.

The civil unrest of 2020 resulted in $500 million in damage to 1,500 buildings on and around Lake Street, Uptown, West Broadway and University Avenue in Minneapolis and St. Paul. At the time, it was the second-costliest civil disturbance in U.S. history, after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, according to insurance estimates.

Chris Dettling, the PPL real estate development vice president who returned to PPL after an eight-year absence to work on the project, said getting to this week took a long time. "We are so happy to be under construction and will be even happier when the first tenants, both residential and commercial, move in," he said.

Wells Fargo Bank, Afro Deli, the nearby Dominic's Tax Service, commercial real estate development firm Neoo Partners and a Latin-owned quinceañera dress store will get keys to their new first-floor commercial spaces in September 2025 and estimate they will employ 70 workers.

Hundreds of residential tenants will move into the top five floors of the building around January 2026. It will cater to large and multigenerational families with hard-to-find three- and four-bedroom units, and it will include amenities that the neighborhood requested, said Damaris Hollingsworth, owner of the architectural firm Design By Melo.

A dozen of the apartments will go to disabled or formerly homeless Minnesotans earning 30% of the area median income. The other units are for tenants earning 50% of the area median income.

The planned project has the potential to be transformational to families. It already has been life-changing for Brazilian-born Hollingsworth.

"This is my biggest project yet. And it's a game-changer. I drive by the site and my eyes tear up," she said. Being tapped to design Opportunity Crossing "changed everything. It's been the biggest break of my life."

Not only was she able to hire more staff once she secured the PPL contract in 2021, but it led to more contracts and growth, she said.

"I can't wait to drive down Highway 35 and look over and see it fully built," Hollingsworth said. "I think I will be a little emotional for a couple of years until I get used to it."

In addition to the elevated, C-shaped design of the building, Juxtaposition Arts in Minneapolis will paint mural installations that will rotate every two years, she said.

The project is also a big win toward Lake Street's recovery and securing desperately needed affordable housing for Minneapolis families making less than $35,000 a year. The groundbreaking will bring Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Mayor Jacob Frey to the site, among others.

Frey met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to tour affordable housing and to talk about the dire need for more in the Twin Cities and across the United States.

Nationally, there is a shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes for the more than 10.8 million extremely low-income U.S. families, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. And there is no state or county in the country where a renter working full-time at minimum wage can afford a market-rate two-bedroom apartment, according to the group.

PPL Chief Executive Paul Williams called the Opportunity Crossing project a successful example of "equitable development" because it involved extensive input from neighbors. It "represents the intersection of equity and community to create an asset to the neighborhood that people had a real say in designing," he said.

The city of Minneapolis has a goal to produce 349 affordable housing units each year between 2021 to 2030, so the decision to invest $34 million in various forms to bring Opportunity Crossing to fruition "was a no-brainer" and is contributing to "an unprecedented rebirth" of the entire area, Frey said.

The city's investment was only one piece. It took work, cash and many players to get the complex to the groundbreaking. Wells Fargo provided more than $35 million in loans, equity and grants. Hennepin County, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, Ameriprise, the Metropolitan Council and others also kicked in millions in various types of aid.

Jon Weiss, co-chief executive of Corporate and Investment Banking for Wells Fargo, said the bank was proud to help in rebuilding and reimagining the Lake Street/Nicollet area. Besides funds, the bank, PPL and the Cultural Wellness Center met monthly with local residents to learn how the bank property might better serve the neighborhood if converted to other uses.

Erik Hansen, Minneapolis' director of Community Planning and Economic Development, called Opportunity Crossing "one of the city's more critical projects" as it replaces something that was destroyed with a positive force that strives to serve all residents.

PPL, co-developer Noor Development Group and Hollingsworth are planning a second affordable housing project for the southwest corner of the old Wells Fargo banking property near Blaisdell and E. Lake Street. That plan calls for 89 apartments. Construction will begin after the funding is secured, which could take three to four years, Hollingsworth said.