Osseo takes action to support apartment project

At its Monday, Dec. 9 meeting, the Osseo City Council discussed several items relating to the current phase and future phase of the Five Central project.

The project consists of a three-story apartment building with 71 units and underground parking for phase one. The project will be located on the Block 6 redevelopment site (block just north of Osseo City Hall, between First Avenue N.W. and Central Avenue, and Fifth Street N.W. and Sixth Street N.W.).

Developer Bill Beard said the current phase one portion of the project is two months ahead of schedule. This first phase could open earlier than expected as well.

You have before you tonight approvals on some plats that we dont intend to actually be the final ones, Beard said. The plats you have before you were contemplated to before a 45-unit (second phase) project. As weve gone through the process of exploring options with the police station and looking at things, weve moved forward with the idea of acquiring the plumbing building and including that in the project and moving that project, phase two, from being 45 units to 69 units.

He added that the council members would shortly have before them a replacement amendment taking into account the unit number change.

The second phase of Five Central would include a 64,363-square-foot apartment building with the continuation of underground parking from phase one. Construction would begin in April 2014.

City Planner Riley Grams said the building for phase two would all be residential units, including on the ground level. The developer crunched the numbers and looked at several different concepts and designs, and decided to ask the city if an all-residential concept would be workable, he said. Staff spent some time reviewing and looking into and decided ultimately that would be an allowable concept plan for us. One of the reasons for this is we do have a lot of available commercial space as it is in the city.

The council approved the preliminary planned unit development for Five Central phase two.

In a related matter the council approved the preliminary site plan for Five Central phase two.

Also, the council approved the preliminary plat for Five Central phase two. This action involves the re-plat for the project, combining four parcels of land. State building code prohibits the building of one continuous building over a property line, which is why the parcels needed to be combined into one parcel.

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Osseo takes action to support apartment project