COMMUNITY
We value community involvement and investment in St. Paul, Minneapolis and surrounding neighborhoods. This “investment” goes well beyond real-estate deals. By using our time and talents to become actively engaged in community events and non-profit organizations, we leverage our financial investments. Whether it is a short-term need, such as providing the space for a non-profit service group, or helping victims of hurricane Katrina, we are engaged far beyond our office walls.
Involvement
Our employees have led local business organizations, participated in youth leadership on the YMCA board, tutored weekly at Hancock Elementary School, founded a Neighborhood Foundation that has created over 150 units of affordable housing, led St. Paul school and business partnership programs, coached youth sports, chaired a record fund drive for Friends of the St. Paul Library, served on the Regions Hospital Board, and joined the Central Corridor Task Force, to name a few! We are proud to be making a difference in our communities.
Investment
Wellington Management supports the arts and non-profit services through our financial investments, as well as through our time. We sponsor the Arts Off Raymond Art Crawl and purchase the work of community artists for our residential properties. We are currently working on a new project with Forecast Art to commission local public art for visible pedestrian points at our Lexington University and 2700 The Avenue properties. We continue to make other investments to increase the collective well-being of our communities, with focus on the arts, literacy and housing.
Our Work In Action
Our projects tell our community story. The Drake Building and Emerald Gardens are just a few of many examples.
The Drake Building
When we acquired the old Drake Marble Building in the Del Sol neighborhood of St. Paul, we knew the community needed to keep some of its services nearby and that affordability was a real concern. The neighborhood had been losing investors, not gaining them. We got involved along with four others who were also willing to make a difference. We invested in creating a new neighborhood bank, Drake Bank, as we restored the historic building working with local materials (like the original Plato Boulevard cobblestone street pavers) and a creative design that suited smaller tenants. We helped ensure that nonprofit services could afford to be in their neighborhood. Today, the Drake is a thriving resource center that houses the community bank, the Northwest Area Foundation, and many small businesses led by local entrepreneurs. This project won a St. Paul Heritage Preservation Award.
Emerald Gardens and The Metro Lofts
The birth of a new neighborhood
In early 2002, the eastern edge of University Avenue in St. Paul was publicly cited as ‘an industrial wasteland’. In spite of the challenges to this important city border, we saw potential – and so did the neighborhood. We worked with the City of St. Paul, community banks, Housing 5000 and neighborhood associations to first acquire and then develop the land. We worked with co-developer Hunt Associates to create 212 new condominium homes at award-winning Emerald Gardens. To act on our vision of adding more rental and affordable housing to the neighborhood, we sold some of the land adjoining Emerald Gardens to Dominium, Inc. Dominium then created Berry Place, a combination of luxury and affordable rental housing. Recently, a new locally owned Dunn Bros. franchise opened in our new Metro Lofts building, just north of Emerald Gardens on University Avenue. Metro Lofts condominium residences are now home to 66 new homeowners. This award-winning five story mixed use project provides a striking visual symbol of the re-birth of this resurgent St. Paul neighborhood. We also are launching an adjacent mixed-use project at 2700 University Avenue that will provide space for a new grocery store and three stories of new office space.
Smart Growth in Challenging Neighborhoods
Wellington Management, Inc. has pioneered successful transit-oriented development projects in some of the most challenging urban sites in the region. Three award-winning mixed used projects on St. Paul’s University Avenue are already nearing completion – Lexington Park , Emerald Gardens and Metro Lofts. These mixed-use, cutting edge TOD developments have added almost 500 residential units to the heart of the city, along with 140,000 s.f. of office and retail development. All told, these projects encompass over $110 million in redevelopment.
WMI has also scored a winner with its Hi-Lake Shopping Center and Corridor Flats projects at the Lake Street LRT station in south Minneapolis. This $25 million project includes 36 new residential units and 150,000 s.f. of exciting core city retail space just a few steps from the new Hiawatha Line’s Lake Street light rail station.
WMI completed construction in the fall of 2007 of Penn-Lowry Crossing, a new mixed-use retail and office project in north Minneapolis. This 50,000 s.f. $8.0M project houses a new Aldi grocery store, an employment counseling center for Resources, Inc., and a Family Dollar and Subway restaurant. This project is one of the largest new commercial investments in north Minneapolis in the past decade and will provide a strong anchor for the new Penn and Lowry Avenue transit corridors.
Finding new and creative uses for older buildings, reinvesting in traditional neighborhoods, working collaboratively with local neighborhood groups, exciting new architectural designs, attracting both local and national tenants, and creating new living opportunities for people of all incomes and lifestyles.