Minnesota Real Estate Journal
July 10, 1995

Soderberg to the Rescue
Specialist Rehabs Ailing Apartments

By Edie Grossfield

When most people looking at buying apartment complexes see beat-up buildings, urine-stained walls, bullets lying on the ground, cockroaches, gang graffiti and dead animals as part of the deal, they run.

But not Jim Soderberg. These examples of neglect are what the president of Soderberg Apartment Specialists saw when he first walked around the old Timber Ridge Apartments located at 6401 Camden Ave. N. in Brooklyn Center.

"My first reaction was, "This one is right up our alley, and I can't think of anyone else that would be more qualified for it," he says. "And I always get excited...the more beat-up I see the building the more excited I get about it."

Since February, when he bought the seven building, 216-unit apartment complex, now called Melrose Gates, Soderberg says he has been spending $10,000 a day on its renovation. Most days he can be found working and sweating right alongside his crew of about 25 people, plus workers from four independent contractors. Every day since Feb. 19, there have been 50 workers at Melrose Gates, ripping out the old and installing the new.

"I think it's so much fun to take an awful, awful place and really make it nice. And this one is going to be a huge transformation," Soderberg says.

Soderberg has experience with major transformations. He has done four other apartments renovations similar to this one, including Park Trail in St. Louis Park and Uptown Square in South Minneapolis. The rehab specialist, who now operates out of an office at Melrose Gates, also owns and manages all five complexes.

Soderberg bought the Old Timber Ridge apartment complex for $3 million after it had gone through foreclosure and went back to TCF Bank. It has had at least five different owners since it was first built in 1969, he estimates. TCF officials called Soderberg about buying Timber Ridge, since they were already familiar with his successful Uptown Square and Park Trails projects.

Just to relay a few of Soderberg's fun facts about his current $2 million renovation project: workers dragged out 50,000 pounds of trash from the apartments, filling his current 10 dumpsters during the first week alone; they had installed 20,000 yards of new Kenmore appliances; put a fresh coat of paint on every wall and ceiling; installed ceramic floors in the kitchens of 72 first-floor apartments; rebuilt all of the elevators; took out and reinstalled every stairwell tread in the complex and put new roof and shingles on all six buildings. Soderberg helped construct the 3,000-foot wooden fence that now surrounds the 15-acre complex. He proudly professes it contains 5,600 spindles, 25,000 nails, and it was built and painted in a week.

Soderberg has most of these numbers in his head, probably because of the way he throws himself so completely into every project he does. Besides the physical labor, he is also negotiating contracts, doing promotional work, helping with leasing and anything else that needs to be done.

Although some might think it a bad idea to reveal how troubled Timber Ridge was before he got a hold of it, Soderberg sees it as a good promotional tool.

"I hope that when we're done here people will see this as the real turning point for Brooklyn Center," he explains. "I think in order to do that, people have to realize how bad Timber Ridge apartments was, and how nice Melrose Gates in going to beÉ So here what was kind of like the crown jewel of the city."

When Soderberg says "course of the city," he is referring, in part, to the 786 police calls made to Timber Ridge apartments last year. In the past few months, police officers and neighbors have come to observe the improvements, and he says some have expressed their relief.

Trouble tenants will not be able to return to the complex due to an exhaustive screening process at Melrose Gates. In fact, the 100 tenants that Soderberg gave notice to when he bought Timber Ridge have provably had to relocate out of Brooklyn Center, he says, since Timber Ridge had such a bad reputation.

Soderberg already received positive feedback from the city about his renovation. Recently, a nearby bowling alley owner phoned Soderberg. "He told me he wanted to hug me," he says.

"I think Jim has accomplished an awful lot in a short period of time," says Brad Hoffman, Brooklyn Center's community development director. "The project is night and day from what it was a few months ago." Hoffman says that before Soderberg took over, the city had been working on enforcing codes at Timber Ridge, which included about 130 pages of single-line item compliance orders. Melrose Gates renovation is likely to help improve a tainted perception of Brooklyn Center as a place with high crime and slum-like housing complexes, Hoffman says, which is a reputation that far exceeds reality, according to Soderberg. Recently there have been other renovations, including The Ponds apartments in the Northwest corner of the city. Others just beginning are Brookdale Ten and Four Courts.

"These projects show that there's a commitment on the part of the community and investors, that Brooklyn Center is a good place to do business and to live," Hoffman says.

Each of the one and two-bedroom apartments at Melrose Gates has new carpeting, paint, window blinds, fixtures and appliances.

In order to improve security, Soderberg has enclosed and screened in all of the first-floor patios, which also cut down on the number of potential entrances to each building. Before he did this, he claims there were 90 easy-access entrances to each building. He has also repaired the front entrance security systems. Other improvements will include additional landscaping and work on the pool and clubhouse.

A one-bedroom, one-bath unit at the complex is renting for $440 - $41 more than it did as the old Timber Ridge apartments. At two-bedroom is renting for $535 Ð $36 more than before.

"One of our biggest goals is to keep the turnover real low. We're probably going to raise the rents here only because they're so low. A complex similar to this in Bloomington or St. Louis Park would run about $150 more," Soderberg says.

It's no coincidence that Soderberg named his new apartment complex after the popular TV show "Melrose Place." He says he purposely chose the name to attract the show's younger audience as tenants, and he says it's working. So far, he and his crew of leasing agents have rented 170 apartments. Most of the new tenants are young professionals in their 20s or 30s. He says he also has a ton of University of Minnesota students.

Despite their hard work and long hours, Soderberg says morale at the renovation site has been high. "I think the big thing is that when we do these renovations, we do them so fast and we rent out so many apartments that everyone gets really excited. Every renovation we do is faster than the one before."