Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #236
I moved out of my Mom’s house when I was 16. I lived in a bunch of wild punk houses, and later rented apartments. After I’d been on my own for five years or so I really started to think about buying a house instead of renting. When I started my record label and construction business I started to think about getting some sort of warehouse/loft space that I could live in and work out of. In the early 90’s I used to go out to NYC and hang out at Neil from Tribal War’s place in Brooklyn. I was so impressed with his set up inside an old church that I decided I was going to try to find a place like this in Minneapolis. There were a few obstacles though. I was young and had absolutely no money. I had started my label with a few hundred bucks, and I was working as a roofing subcontractor but barely making any money. Anyone can tell you that the first few years starting any business is rough, and I learned all the lessons the hard way. I tried to qualify for a loan from a bank, but my income was non-existent, I was laughed out of the office. Still I was determined. I was sick of paying rent and I knew ownership and building equity made sense, plus my neighbors were constantly complaining about the loud music and the dog barking.

I started looking around, mostly at boarded up buildings, fixer uppers, tax-forfeited property, anything cheap. I met with realtors, made offers, but my lack of cash pretty much stifled most any chance I had. Finally I lucked out, Lori from Babes in Toyland introduced me to one of the guys in Run Westy Run whose brother had a space for rent that he might be interested in selling. I checked it out, a run down old building across from some railroad tracks that had formerly been an upholstery shop. Dudes were hanging out front selling crack. Hookers were loitering in the alley. The place was old, dirty and in disrepair. I thought here was my chance. I was full of urban pioneer spirit. I moved in right away. For a while I rented, and in 1994 bought a 50% interest in the building on a “contract for deed”. We split the place half and half, I got the first floor and he got the second floor and we shared the garage and basement. We embarked on a radical program of rehabilitation. The place was a total wreck. The upholstery shop had been in the same family since 1917. The last 20 years or so the business had wound down and the old guys left running the place had really let it go. I put in new windows and doors, sanded floors, hung a lot of drywall, re did the electrical service, built a new garage, and much more. Over the next 8 years we made a lot of improvements but anyone who’s ever been there could still tell you the place was not that great. Still it served our purposes. I had the label and a band that needed rehearsal space, plus space for my construction business, Kevin was a sculptor and needed studio space. We both needed living and work space cheap and here it was. There is a long tradition of artists and musicians renovating old commercial spaces into studio lofts. Our place was nothing chic or fancy, very utilitarian, but years of steady improvements made it just good enough.

About four years ago there started to be some talk about redevelopment in our neighborhood. The area had steadily declined for the last 20-30 years. In the mid 90’s the area hit rock bottom. There were tons of boarded up houses. Most of the long-term businesses moved out. Our block became the heart of a major drug and prostitution market. I took advantage of this climate of urban decay to start the Bombshelter, an underground punk club in the basement of a boarded up gun store. I’ve written before about life in the Phillips neighborhood in this column, and I wrote in Profane Existence about how I got involved in the local neighborhood organization. I was serving on the housing committee for the neighborhood and started to hear a lot of talk about redevelopment of our neighborhood. Several major infrastructure projects were underway that will potentially radically alter the shape of the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. The first is the Midtown Greenway. This is a project to rip out the old rail corridor that runs through south Minneapolis and link it to the existing bike and jogging trails along the river to the east and lakes to the west. This project has already been completed in the more affluent western end of the trail. And work has started recently in the portion that cuts through Phillips. Our run down old warehouse space went from being “on the tracks” to “adjacent to the midtown greenway”. The other major infrastructure improvement is Light Rail Transit (LRT). The LRT is a long planned solution to traffic congestion and an attempt by the Twin Cities to remedy this town’s appalling sprawl and incredibly poor transit system. I think light rail is a good idea. Although the way it’s been planned and implemented in the Twin Cities has been pretty open to criticism. Either way, the rail line, which is currently under construction, runs right along the edge of our neighborhood.

Another major factor affecting Phillips was the radical rise in housing prices in the Twin Cities during the recent economic boom. The Twin Cities job market is one of the best in the country. Thousands of immigrants have flooded the Twin Cities to take up the adundant low paying service jobs. Over the past five or six years housing prices metro wide have doubled, and doubled again. Houses that sold for 40-60K in the mid nineties now sell for 150-160K or more. The decline of the area meant that most of the housing stock was rental property and undervalued. Housing prices in our area remained low for a while, but then dramatically increased to catch up with the rest of the metro area. In fact, due to the shortage of affordable housing and brisk rental market, investment property prices (apartments and duplexes) really took off. As returns from the stock market dwindled a lot of investors started looking into real estate as the one vehicle that was still making money. A lot of investors looked at Phillips as an area that had low prices, but steady rental incomes and a lot of potential for the future with the major transit projects running through it.

Local activists spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to try to manage this process. We agreed that development was coming to Phillips whether the existing residents liked it or not. And we had to figure out how to use our power as a neighborhood organization to guide this development as best we could. So a master plan was developed after hiring some architects and urban planners. Our plan was actually pretty radical. We would forestall corporate developers by doing major redevelopment projects sponsored by the neighborhood organization and local non-profit developers. Three major redevelopment areas were identified. One of which was my block. This was because our block was on the mid town greenway where it intersected with Bloomington Ave. the main north-south commercial corridor and Lake St. the main east-west commercial corridor. Suddenly Fort Havoc, which is the corner lot, became an important piece of real estate in a major community redevelopment project.

The community development projects we created were based around affordable housing, increased density, environmental sustainability and use of mass transit. When all three projects are completed they will add hundreds of units of affordable housing in formerly blighted areas that maximize transit resources and local amenities. The other prong of our redevelopment strategy was building new affordable housing on the vacant lots left over from the city’s tear down mania of the 80’s and providing grants and low interest loans to homeowners to fix up their houses. I am continually amazing at how a bunch of old hippy activists and a punk rocker were able to get hundreds of thousands and later millions of dollars in funding to push these projects forward. Like I wrote in Profane Existence, I think I got more done in serving two years on the neighborhood housing committee than in ten years of protests, slogans and banners. From the beginning our goal was keep out corporate developers and keep the area affordable while trying improve living conditions and drive out the drug dealers and criminal gangs.

So I wound up on the board of a redevelopment project that was destined to redevelop the block I lived on. I helped select the architect and developer, helped design the project, and helped get some of the funding. All along I realized Fort Havoc would have to be torn down, but figured I would get a better deal being on the inside track than on the outside. After three years the project finally got funded for Phase One, a 37 unit apartment building with a day care center and two live/work buildings. After a long process involving lots of lawyers, real estate agents, city and federal bureaucrats and more lawyers Kevin and I agreed to sell Fort Havoc to the developer of the apartment building. The negotiations were tough but not acrimonious and we got a pretty good price plus a relocation package that was pretty attractive. Meanwhile I found a new place, a similar commercial building with some apartments above that was run down and the owner was considering selling. I managed to negotiate a purchase contingent on the sale of Fort Havoc. After months of negotiations and delays I sold Fort Havoc and bought the new place Nov. 1st. I’m now involved in a blitzkrieg campaign to fix up the new place and move in before the end of November. I have to be out of the old Fort by Dec 1st, after which it will be torn down to build the new apartments.

I can’t believe I pulled this off! I was super skeptical through out the whole process. When I bought this place I was just looking for a cheap place to live and start a business. Now 8 years later, I found myself sitting on a piece of fairly hot property and got a premium price for a slightly renovated old upholstery shop. Kevin and I sold out and paid off our loans and each took our half of the proceeds from the sale. For one afternoon I was rich, I had a check for 110 thousand dollars. But later that afternoon I bought my new place and was back in hock to the bank for another 135 thousand.

I’m not sure if there’s a moral to this story. But this is how it worked out for me. You might hear rumors that I was “forced out by the city” or that I got millions for Fort Havoc or that I gentrified Bloomington Avenue. But the above is the straight story. . I took every dollar of equity from the sale of Fort Havoc and put it into my new place, so other than a very large down payment, I realized no immediate windfall from the sale. So rumors about me rolling in cash from big time real estate deals are also untrue. I’ve applied to the housing committee in the neighborhood I moved into and plan to stay involved in community housing and development activities. No more tearing down my own block though. Next month, back to the good stuff, hardcore music!

If you are in the Twin Cities Dec. 29th you might want to check out Thrash Fest 4. DS 13, Limp Wrist, Nine Shocks Terror, Tear It Up, Caustic Christ, Spazm 151, Holding On, Path of Destruction, and Damage Deposit. Details at www.havocrex.com.

Speaking of Damage Deposit, this is the new band I’m singing for. You can check out our demo at www.havocrex.com/damagedeposit.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1984

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