Universal Plating site to pass to Clare Housing, Spark-Y

The empty lot on Monroe Street next to the Edison High School football field is about to get new tenants. 

On July 9, the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO) and Clare Housing signed a letter of intent that transfers ownership of the former Universal Plating site to the agency, which currently houses 275 people in Northeast with HIV/AIDS.

For the acquisition price of $1, Clare Housing will construct a building on the site that includes “significant environmental and water management features.” MWMO Board Chair Randy Stille said the letter of intent “lays the groundwork for a potential future transfer of land to Clare Housing for redevelopment.” 

Jenny Harding, director of advancement for Clare Housing, said, “The plan for the site is a 30-40-unit apartment building providing permanent supportive housing for older adults living with HIV to age in place. As the average age of the people Clare Housing serves has increased, this building will include extra supports and design considerations for the age 55+ population.”

But Clare Housing won’t have the only building on the 1.6-acre site. Plans are also in the works for a permanent home for Spark-Y, which serves more than 2,500 youth each year through its hands-on sustainability classes, urban agriculture lab and pathways internships.  

Kids in the Spark-Y program have planted a rain garden in the Holland Basin at the corner of 22nd Avenue and Quincy Street and helped build a picnic shelter at Beltrami Park. In 2019, they built 30 large-scale hydroponic systems and used them to grow food. The nonprofit is presently housed in the Casket Arts Building, 681 17th Ave. NE.

Clare Housing’s project is expected to integrate into the Edison Green Campus energy efficiency and water management system, Stille said. “This action springs from a significant collaborative effort between MWMO, Clare Housing, Spark-Y and the established work at Edison to conceptualize and implement multiple public benefits that coordinate around comprehensive environmental design.”

The Spark-Y building would be built closest to the football field and be a sort of “lead-in” to the Edison grounds. Planners envision a garden between Spark-Y and the Clare building that would be tended by students and Clare seniors.

But environmental cleanup has to happen first.

According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), the land has seen many uses since it was first developed in the late 1800s, including residential dwellings, a metal foundry, a lumber yard, a street department road and highway storage facility, an auto repair facility, a construction company and a warehouse for storage.  

Universal Plating, Inc. (UPI) performed electro and mechanical plating at 19th and Monroe from 1944 to 2009. The state of Minnesota took over the site in 2015 in a tax forfeit. The site was heavily polluted. According to MPCA, “The release of contaminants resulted from spills of wastewater onto the facility floor, which seeped through cracks into the soil and groundwater.”

The site has been remediated by Hennepin County’s Resident and Real Estate Services (RRES). Tons of materials have been removed. During remediation, soil from the northwest portion of the site as well as soil from beneath the former facility, near underground fuel storage tanks, was found to contain arsenic, cadmium, copper, cyanide, lead, nickel and zinc above MPCA standards. In some places, the pollution was six feet deep. Benzene, PCE, TCE were also detected in the shallow soil beneath the former facility.

Last year, MWMO applied for and received a brownfield grant from the state of Minnesota to “revisit the status” of the UPI site. Kevin Reich, MWMO executive director, said MWMO held discussions about end uses that would meet the objectives of the county, MWMO, Clare Housing, Spark-Y and Minneapolis Public Schools. The result was a provisional plan and an agreement with the county to transfer the land to the MWMO. MWMO is acting as a “pass-through” entity.

And now the scramble for funding begins.

Reich said pollution still lurks beneath the concrete slab of the old factory, and MPCA continues to monitor for vapor intrusion. MWMO will seek grants for continued environmental cleanup at the site. 

Harding said Clare Housing has already begun its financial homework. “Applications for tax credit funding through Minnesota Housing and the City of Minneapolis are in the works, as well gap financing through the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund,” she said. 

Spark-Y is also pursuing funding.

Construction of the apartment building, Harding said, is contingent upon environmental site cleanup, which Reich said would most likely take place through spring of 2025 and could cost as much as $1 million. 

Harding said, “The earliest possible construction completion would be winter of 2026.”