The H. Alden Smith House has played many roles since it was constructed in the late 1880s — a family home, a mortuary and even the set of a Hollywood movie. And, as of 2022, the brooding brownstone in downtown Minneapolis has served as the fulcrum of a new, six-story apartment development called The Abbey and a lavish private clubhouse for its residents.
The result of this unlikely architectural graft is a development with "charm and character that many multifamily projects lack," said Brent Karkula, a managing director at the Minneapolis office of JLL. Karkula was one of a panel of local experts that served as judges for the 2023 CoStar Impact Awards, which selected the project as the Minneapolis/St. Paul Multifamily Development of the Year.
Such an outcome was neither inevitable nor easy. The project at 47 Spruce Place first took form in the 2010s, when then-owner Minneapolis Community & Technical College found itself with a beautiful but dilapidated building at the end of its useful life as an office. The Richardsonian Romanesque masterpiece would require $7 million in renovations to stabilize the structure and bring it up to code. Given the circumstances, MCTC elected to sell the property, which was then over 120 years old.
In addition to its precarious physical condition and advanced age, the H. Alden Smith House was also in an awkward spot, in a very literal sense. The building was once one of many luxurious Victorian homes on Minneapolis' Millionaires' Row, but its contemporaries had long since been torn down and replaced by large warehouses and hulking apartment blocks. By 1973, it was the "last survivor" of a bygone era, according to its application to the National Register of Historic Places, marooned on a modest corner lot pinned between the college, a city park and the street.
A 2016 feasibility study indicated that the high cost of renovating the house meant that it was unlikely to find any takers if sold on its own, according to materials on file with the city of Minneapolis, which assisted in the search for a buyer. To sweeten the deal and "cross-subsidize" any future project there, MCTC decided to throw in two adjacent parcels, then occupied by a black box theater and a garden. Even so, the deal was a tough sell. City staff toured the property with five different local development teams, and in the end, only one was interested, W + Noordijk.
Fortunately, the two principals of W + Noordijk were uniquely qualified for the job. Tom Nordyke's track record in real estate development spanned 30 years and included some of the Twin Cities' most ambitious and successful adaptions of historic buildings. Most notably, he was involved in the $156 million renovation of the Pillsbury A-Mill in Minneapolis, which was listed as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2011, and the conversion of St. Paul's vacant Schmidt Brewery complex. Both were turned into artist lofts. Brian Woolsey was then the managing principal of the Cushman & Wakefield's Minneapolis office, with a team that averaged 50 closed transactions a year. The project kicked into high gear when W + Noordijk partnered with two other local firms, Sentinel Management Company and Yellow Tree.
The idea was to incorporate the mansion into a new multifamily development, which would rise on the adjacent land. Doing so without damaging the mansion's irreplaceable historic elements required creativity and precision.
"[The plan was] complicated by the fact that we could not complete the design until we fully demolished all the various additions and internal renovations that had occurred over the last century," the developers wrote in the project's Impact Award narrative. "This required the team to work hand in hand with the designers to quickly come to a functional design that complemented the existing core structure the best we could to remain within the project budget. The result was a building salvaged and reborn for tenants to enjoy for another 100 years and reaffirming to the market that a historical renovation when done thoughtfully, can reap intangible rewards beyond the bottom line."
The mansion is tied to the larger multifamily building by a covered walkway that connects with the 136-year-old building's original pocket doors. Its main floor has been restored to its original grandeur and now is home to a cocktail lounge, billiards room and other amenities for residents. The upper floors have been converted into apartments, with many Victorian touches still very much in evidence.
About the project: The Abbey is a 124-unit apartment complex at 47 Spruce Place. The developers broke ground on the project in February 2021 and wrapped up work there by spring of 2022.
What the judges said: "The developer did a wonderful job incorporating the existing Alden Smith mansion into this development to deliver a project that has a great feel of mixing new with old," said Joe Conzemius, vice president at CBRE's Minneapolis office.
They made it happen: The development team from W+Noordijk included Brian Woolsey and Tom Nordyke. The team from Sentinel Management Company included Paola Bernardi Sipe, president, and Fabrizio Montermini, its managing director. The team from Yellow Tree included Co-Founders Robb Lubenow and Bryan Walters, President Kirk Pennings, Vice President of Operations Don Brown, Senior Project Manager Paul Martin and Jack Spaeth, the company's leasing and marketing manager. The architectural work was done by DJR of Minneapolis. The property manager is Nolan Kaiser of Sentinel Management Company.
