Additional Downtown Apartments
Opus Group is about to begin pumping up the tires on its latest project: the Velo, a bicycle-inspired boutique luxury apartment complex in downtown Minneapolis. The Minnetonka-based developer found a financial partner for the 101-unit apartment complex on a site owned by Merit Printing at 103 Second St. N. in the Warehouse District. Opus announced plans for the project in February.
Edina-based Sentinel Management Co., owned by the Luigi Bernardi family, is going to own the project when its completed. A related entity, Sentinel-Velo acquired the site for $3.7 million Dec. 13 from BCR Real Estate, based in Brooklyn Park, according to a certificate of real estate value filed Monday with Hennepin County.
The building’s design will cater to bicycles, as its name implies. Velo is French for bicycle. It will have about 12,000 square feet of retail space on the first level. Other amenities could include a yoga studio, lounge, fire pits and a grill kitchen. It will also have fitness centers, a roof top terrace and garden boxes for residents.
The project will break ground in April 2013 and should be open by the spring of 2014, according to an Opus news release.
This is the second luxury apartment complex that Opus plans in downtown Minneapolis. Earlier this month it started construction of the 26-story Nic on Fifth, a $100 million apartment tower on Nicollet Mall and South Fifth Street that should be complete by the summer of 2014.