Modular Missing Middle Housing
The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority builds 84 new modular units of affordable housing across 16 properties
By Justin R. Wolf | December 19, 2024
A completed three-story, six-unit building in Minneapolis’s East Phillips neighborhood. Four color palettes and high-quality materials including brick allowed the design team to tailor each of the 16 buildings to its surroundings. Photo by Kory Kevin Studio.
FEATURE
The need for affordable housing in just about every U.S. city has placed a tremendous strain on the country’s ability to balance supply and demand. By some estimates, the U.S. needs up to five million new homes to meet demand. This at a time when housing prices are outpacing wage growth in most markets, and older housing units previously considered affordable are now going for “fair market” rate.
In Minneapolis, help arrived on January 1, 2020, when the city’s comprehensive plan, Minneapolis 2040, took effect. The city’s unprecedented move to eliminate single-family zoning—approved by a 12-to-1 City Council vote in December 2018—was made in part to boost the development of high- and medium-density housing types and increase access to affordable housing. (Successful legal challenges to the comprehensive plan halted implementation of Minneapolis 2040 in fall 2023, but the Minnesota Legislature passed bills ending the lawsuit in spring 2024 and the Minnesota Court of Appeals lifted the injunction.)
Back in 2018, when the 2040 plan was under review, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) was finalizing a strategic vision that aimed to capitalize on the proposed lifting of single-family zoning with new housing in each corner of the city. That vision is now reality in the form of the agency’s Family Housing Expansion Project: 84 new units of affordable housing spread across the city in 16 four- and six-unit buildings, all constructed in just 13 months. All 84 units are now occupied.
Photos 1–3: One of nine modules being craned into position for the building shown above. Photos by Amanda Pederson, AIA.
Brian Schaffer, MPHA’s assistant director of real estate development, says Minneapolis 2040 is embodied in this project. “When you pair affordable family housing and small-scale infill with zoning changes, it allows for this kind of development,” he says. “It’s really something to be highlighted.”
MPHA estimates that its waiting list for housing has been as high as 7,500 families within the last year and a half. To meet even a fraction of that demand, agency leaders knew they had to move aggressively and fast. Developing 16 sites across the city simultaneously with a relatively modest budget of $50 million would require a streamlined approach. When MPHA released its RFP in early 2020, it specified volumetric modular construction—the stacking and joining of factory-finished modules into a completed building.
When done right, volumetric modular construction can significantly reduce project costs (estimates range from 13 to 21 percent) and shorten schedules (by up to 33 percent) because the prefabricated modules are assembled in factory-controlled conditions while site work commences.
The team MPHA selected for the project included Frerichs Construction, RISE Modular, and DJR. RISE is a Minnesota firm that specializes in modular manufacturing and construction. DJR is an integrated design firm with expertise in both affordable housing and modular buildings. RISE and DJR had previously collaborated on Minneapolis’s first modular apartment building—the 30-unit MOD42 in the Standish-Ericsson neighborhood. MPHA had worked with Frerichs on earlier projects.
“Volumetric modular construction can significantly reduce project costs and shorten schedules because the prefabricated modules are assembled in factory-controlled conditions while site work commences.”
“MPHA came in with the idea of constructing smaller-volume buildings across multiple sites,” says RISE COO David Walock. “So, the question became, ‘How do we deliver on that scale with thoughtful infill that makes sense in a single-family context?’”
Housing at this scale has come to be called the “missing middle”—a range of multi-unit housing types that are compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes but difficult to build in most housing markets due to regressive zoning. Indeed, without Minneapolis 2040, the completed Family Housing Expansion Project “wouldn’t be possible,” says DJR project manager Amanda Pederson, AIA.
While missing middle housing has a successful track record in low-density neighborhoods, great care still needs to be taken when planning multifamily housing next to single-family homes. MPHA identified and analyzed nearly two dozen infill sites in its portfolio for suitability for four- and six-unit buildings. Criteria included street and alley access and tree coverage (critical factors for the transport and assembly of prefabricated modular components, or “mods”), as well as setbacks, parking, walkability, and proximity to transit. And, of course, lot size—the buildings would each have a footprint of 45 by 72 feet.
Photos 1–4: Completed four-unit buildings in the Seward and Ventura Village neighborhoods. The layout and finishes for the Family Housing Expansion kitchens were shaped by input from a resident advisory panel. Photos by Kory Kevin Studio.
“We started looking at sites that had the built form guidance and the zoning guidance that the city was adopting in the 2040 plan,” says Schaffer. “Then we identified sites that could be allowed to have a two- or three-story, small-scale apartment building.” Thirteen lots made the cut, and another three were acquired from the city. (Of those three, two were conjoined and the other was adjacent to an MPHA-owned lot.)
Next, MPHA and its project partners met with neighboring residents, businesses, and property owners in a dozen neighborhoods to understand and address their concerns and gather feedback on site design. MPHA assembled a resident advisory panel whose input helped shape the kitchen layout and finishes.
The most significant disruption at each location was the blocking of the street during the five to seven days when the mods were delivered to the site and craned into position. That’s a comparatively compressed timeline for peak construction activity—another benefit of modular construction. For the Family Housing Expansion Project, the site work was further streamlined by RISE integrating all plumbing, HVAC, and electrical chases within the mods while in the factory. “The repetitions in the process are favorable to off-site builds,” says Walock. “The manufacturing is all pretty consistent.”
The properties span the city, from North Minneapolis’s Folwell neighborhood south to Fulton and east to Morris Park. The 10 three-story, six-unit buildings are composed of nine mods, and the six two-story, four-unit buildings of six mods. In all, the Family Housing Expansion Project added 58 three-bedroom apartments and 26 two-bedroom apartments—a ratio that aligns with the demand seen in MPHA’s waiting list, says Schaffer.
“For the design, we wanted to make sure the buildings read as market rate, with high-quality residential materials,” says DJR’s Pederson. “The floor plan is organized around a central service core that houses circulation and back-of-house functions like the bathrooms, closets, and mechanical systems. This allows the living spaces to line the perimeter of the building, for daylighting and views.”
Operationally, the buildings are designed to last. Each is fitted with high-efficiency windows, continuous exterior insulation, and a 22-kilowatt solar array that provides roughly 30 percent of the property’s annual energy needs. “The MPHA is looking at these housing units as something they will own for 100 years,” says Pederson. “So, we designed the buildings to perform well.”
The project team for the Family Housing Expansion Project included DJR, RISE Modular, Frerichs Construction, Sandman Structural Engineers, Cain Thomas Associates, and Civil Site Group.
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