Humboldt Mill + Annex
Minneapolis
Julie Snow Architects

Julie Snow Architects inserts a loft building that accommodates a modern lifestyle into a historic mill district

© Don F. Wong

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By Camille LeFevre

Little more than a 100 years ago, the shores of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis hummed with a booming flour-milling industry. Powered by St. Anthony Falls, the mills made Minneapolis the “Flour Milling Capital of the World” and gave rise to such multinational corporations as General Mills and Pillsbury. By the 1960s, most of the mills had been torn down or gutted by fire.

In the 1990s, the area saw the beginning of a renaissance driven by private developers and individuals investing in riverfront housing. A local player, Brighton Development, took the plunge, converting several dilapidated structures into high-end housing and contributing to a process that helped create the Mill City Museum [Record, February 2004, page 122]. The 148,000-square-foot Humboldt Mill + Annex is Brighton’s latest project here and combines lofts created within the historic Humboldt Mill (built in 1873) with a new Modernist structure on the site of a former train shed.

Sandwiched between the Mill City Museum on the west and Jean Nouvel’s Guthrie Theater (scheduled to open in 2005) on the east, the project needed to bridge old and new architectures, in terms of massing and materials. But before anything could be built, the mill’s burned-out masonry shell had to be stabilized. When pigeons flew off of the windows, bricks would tumble to the ground, remembers Julie Snow, FAIA, who designed the project. Snow also had to overcome the fact that 200-foot-high concrete grain elevators block views of the Mississippi River to the north.

To keep the brick shell intact as it was being stabilized, construction workers erected a steel structure inside the five-story Humboldt Mill, and then installed a new structure of posttensioned concrete slabs and columns. Snow respected the character of the old building as she converted it, retaining its deep-sill windows and the empty timber-frame pockets in its brick walls. She created large living lofts, just two to a floor, echoing the large industrial spaces that used to be here.

Want the full story? Read the entire article in our November 2004 issue.
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Formal name of Project:
Humboldt Mill + Annex

Location:
Minneapolis

Gross square footage:
147,945 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$19 Million

Owner:
Humboldt Lofts, LLC

Architect:
Julie Snow Architects, Inc.
2400 Rand tower
527 Marquette Avenue
Minneapolis, Mn 55402
612.359.9430 t.
612.359.9530 f.
www.juliesnowarchitects.com