Minneapolis

Known as the City of Lakes, Minneapolis is the premier business and cultural center between Chicago and San Francisco. Many of its attractions are evident during even the briefest of visits—its striking downtown, beautiful neighborhoods, vibrant entertainment districts, nationally significant museums, orchestra, performance arts, and theater.

All are set within emerald embrace of the magnificent Grand Rounds park system, whose landscaped parkways encircle Minneapolis, interconnecting the city's sparkling lakes, Minnehaha Creek, and the Mississippi Riverfront. This rich array of parklands provides abundant year-around recreational opportunities: sailing, swimming, running, canoeing, biking, skating, cross-country skiing, and much more.

The University of Minnesota Minneapolis is a major research and teaching institution, offering a very broad range of prominent academic departments. The university's powerhouse engineering and medical faculties have formed the core of local technology startups over the past half century, from supercomputers to biomedical products. In fact, Minneapolis business activity has been based on often-daring entrepreneurship since the city's founding, which, along with a traditional emphasis on education, accounts for the region's exceptionally balanced and ever-adaptable economy.

Much of the city's attraction is not as apparent from a visit, especially the sense of belonging. Because Minneapolis business culture is open and entrepreneurial rather than rooted in an entrenched local social order, newcomers to the community are warmly welcomed, and encouraged to participate fully in the city's civic and social institutions. As a result, it is easy to feel a strong connection to the entire city, no matter which Minneapolis neighborhood one chooses to call home

Contact the Asbury Group, for Downtown Central Minneapolis real estate help

Downtown Southwest / Loring Park

Located just southwest of Downtown, Loring Park was named after Charles Loring, the first president of the park board. Because of its ample size, central location, and beauty, many community assemblies are held in Loring Park throughout the year. The park is a unique civic space in Minneapolis, bordered by the Downtown skyline and by impressive architectural landmarks: the Basilica of St. Mary, the Cathedral Church of St. Mark, Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, and Walker Art Center. The Loring park shelter is a rare Midwestern example of the Mission Revival style.

Two residential settings are prominent in this neighborhood, which is populated largely by adults aged 25-44. One is the redeveloped district on the east side of the park. These high-rise buildings are nestled along the Loring Greenway, which connects pedestrians to the Nicollet Mall and the Mississippi Riverfront. The other residential area is made up of mostly prewar walkup and medium-rise apartment buildings located south of 15th Street. Because of this mix, Loring Park offers a wide choice of housing types and prices for such a compact district.

Loring Park is exceptionally convenient, within an easy walk of Downtown, Orchestra Hall, the Hennepin theater district, Walker Art Center, the Sculpture Garden, and to numerous restaurants at all price levels. The neighborhood is extremely well-served by bus routes along Hennepin, Lyndale, and Nicollet, and is directly accessible to the Minneapolis parkway system and to I-94/394 and I-35W.

Contact the Asbury Group, for The Downtown Southwest / Loring Park real estate help

Downtown East / The Mill District

The Mill District, also identified as Downtown East by planners, incorporates many of the historic West Bank industrial structures that made Minneapolis the world's leading grain miller in the late 1800s. More than anywhere else in Minneapolis, or the entire region, for that matter, this is a place undergoing spectacular transformation. The new Guthrie Theater forms the district centerpiece, supported by the Mill City Museum, which rises from the romantic ruins of the historic Washburn "A" Mill.

Although the Mill District officially extends south to Fifth Street—bordered on the east and west by I-35W and by Portland Avenue—the current action occurs north of Washington, especially along both sides of First Street. Hundreds of condos and apartments have recently been completed or are under development along the street. Prior to the current redevelopment, the district's permanent residential population was less than 100. Today, as measured by percentage of change, the growth is phenomenal.

The core of these pioneering residents seem to be classic affluent empty nesters in their 40s through 60s. The attraction to people who could live anywhere is easy to understand: a singular physical environment overlooking the Mississippi River at St. Anthony Falls, next-door culture at the Guthrie, a growing number of nearby restaurants, living close to Downtown and minutes from Orchestra Hall and the Hennepin theater district, and within walking distance to the University, either down Washington Avenue or across the Stone Arch Bridge. Still, even more than the sum of these appealing attributes, the Mill District is currently energized by the sheer excitement of transformative change.

Contact the Asbury Group, for the Downtown East / The Mill District real estate help

Downtown Southeast / Elliot Park

Like Loring Park to its west, Elliott Park neighborhood is located on the edge of Downtown, directly to its south. The park, originally known as Elliott's Gardens, was donated to the newly established park board in 1883. The property was enlarged that year to a full four acres, its fashionably naturalistic plan devised by the well-known landscape architect, H.W.S. Cleveland. Large, handsome residences were soon built around the park.

Over the past century, Elliott Park has evolved as Downtown grew, as the Swedish-St. Barnabas hospital complex expanded, and after the Metrodome was built. In the postwar era, substantial amounts of senior housing was constructed, mostly in towers located in the southwest section of the neighborhood. Over the past decade, hundreds of housing units have been rehabilitated in historic buildings dating from the time the park was created. Recently, luxury residential towers have been built at the neighborhood's northern edge, adjacent to Downtown.

Because of its location next to Downtown (especially to the Hennepin County Medical Center) and adjacent to Cedar-Riverside and the University's West Bank campus, Elliott Park neighborhood has been growing in population, and becoming younger in age. The neighborhood's average income is lower than the citywide average, reflecting the senior housing, a large number of young adults, ages 18-24, at least some attending North Central College, and probably, the number of lower-paying jobs at the medical center. Elliott Park offers relatively inexpensive housing considering its central location near Downtown, and conveniently close to the University and the Art Institute.

Contact the Asbury Group, for the Downtown Southeast / Elliot Park real estate help

North Loop

The North Loop planning district occupies a very large area, extending diagonally more than a mile, from near the Basilica of St. Mary to the Plymouth Avenue Bridge over the Mississippi. Most of this is a crazy quilt mosaic of non-residential land uses. However, two areas within the North Loop are especially oriented to residential. One of these is the warehouse district, a visual extension of the First Avenue North entertainment district—through here, between Washington Avenue and the riverfront, an intriguing mix of industrial, commercial, and offices, along with a small amount of residential loft space.

This area in effect serves as a gateway to the residential neighborhoods north of Washington and west of 3rd Avenue North. Rehabilitation of obsolete multi-floor manufacturing buildings along First Street North began with loft conversions in the 1980s. The popularity of these historic loft spaces led to the construction of brand new loft-like apartments and condos, garbed in traditional imageries, on adjacent lots. Separately, new luxury townhousing was developed along the newly constructed West River Parkway. Although these two neighborhoods exist back-to-back, they serve different residential markets. The townhousing is physically tucked away into an enclave to a greater extent than any other housing near Downtown.

Because virtually all of the North Loop's housing was created in the past two decades, population has shown very strong growth from a small base—from 338 residents in 1980 to 1,115 in 2000. Overall household income is well above the citywide median, though almost certainly this average is skewed upward by the West River Parkway households. Beyond the superior visual amenity of a location on the parkway, all of the housing benefits from a location near Downtown, and direct, parkway access to the University.

Contact the Asbury Group, for the North Loop Minneapolis real estate help.