More than you ever wanted to know about Stone Arch apartments! Written by a 27-year-old sensible, single male who enjoys going out but is by no means a party animal or would live in "dorm-style" apartments for longer than 12 seconds.
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My sister and I lived in Stone Arch since day one, back in October of 2003. Coming from out of town, we didn't know the best places to live in Minneapolis. We looked at three places and although Stone Arch has no balconies, chose it for the "section 42" options they have for some units.

A quick history on Stone Arch is that it's on Main Street SE, a nicely-worn brick street in part of Minneapolis' old milling district - the famous "Pillsbury" sign sits atop the old Pillsbury A Mill down the street. Because it's an industrial zone (the surprisingly-quiet Metal Matic steel shop - or whatever it is - sits behind the complex on the north side), the apartment site had to be re-zoned for residential housing. The neighborhood association would only allow this if Stone Arch offered a certain number of apartments for this "section 42" business.

Basically, at least as of our signing in 2003, if the residents of a single apartment make less than 50% of the median income in the area (turns out to be $30,000-ish) or 60% (roughly $37,000), you get a discount on rent. There are specific "section 42" units in both buildings - as I made less than $37k at the time and my sister was a full-time student (only one full-time student w/zero income allowed in the sec 42 units), we paid about $1035 for our two bedroom, downtown/river-facing unit. For the second and subsequent years, they bump the qualifications up to $51,000...the only reason we ended up moving out was b/c once my sister was finished with school, our combined incomes exceeded the income limit.

Ooh, another note about the "section 42" units - all utilities are included! Loving air conditioning year round, our place was always an ice box!

Anyway, as you've read from the reviews, there is sometimes a noise problem. There might be a few party animals there - we had some above or below us a couple times - but I would never describe it as a dorm. It's too expensive for a lot of riff-raff but, then again, there's a lot of riff-raff with access to their parents' money.

The soundproofing on common walls is great and despite 35W being a block or so east of the two buildings, it's a quiet hum at most. The windows they use there are airport residential area-rated or something. (You remember these things when they were touting the building before it was finished.) The developer of Stone Arch is also doing the Flour Sack Flats, kitty-corner from the building at 2nd Street SE and 6th Ave SE. I was considering buying a condo there and he was impressed I was coming from Stone Arch b/c the builders incorrectly installed the advanced sound proofing between floors - this is why you can hear other people's music from time to time. They came through our apartment in 2005 maybe and did sound testing. The developer is in litigation w/the builders over this..

Anyway, the apartments are great - you will seriously love the toilets! It's the American Standard Champion. These things are seriously jet-powered or something. It's a conversation piece! I looked up stats online and, in testing, they can flush 29 golf balls or 16 cloth dinner napkins. We never used a plunger in the three years we were there. At the very least, once I have my own place, all the toilets will be replaced with these ones. Ha!

What else - they use a lot of green-friendly stuff there...like, the ventiliation system in the garages only comes on when sensors detect a car coming in or out or something. A lot of the lighting is on motion-detection and *all* of the lighting is that energy-star compact fluorescent business.

The staff is great - they did go through about 7 or 8 managers in the three years I was there (moved out Sep 30, 2006, only b/c we didn't qualify for that sec 42 thing anymore) - but it's amazing how fast they fix things. If the office is open when you call, they'll be up pretty quick. They write everything down on these pink work order sheets. Really fast at fixing anything.

Parking I *think* was always in the $75-80 range for underground spots and once they put that lot in across the street (2005 sometime, I think), parking there started at $30 and progressed to $50. It didn't used to be assigned outside - the towing company would rarely come through and tow anyone w/o a parking sticker so there were always people who didn't pay who'd park in the pay spots. The assigned parking resolved this..

There did used to be a problem with people always parking in the firelane. Well, it's a lot easier if you're going to run into your apartment. They didn't design the spots in front of at least the 701 building for enough room to backup with cars in that lane. I would not park there b/c I got towed at least once. This angered me a bit b/c the staff had to call the towing company - they didn't check my car to note that I had a parking sticker and lived there. Could have called as a courtesy and saved me $250.

One gripe about the place is that management while I was there was still trying to figure out the best practices for the buildings. They would make changes on extremely short notice, ie: "we'll be coming into your apartment tomorrow to do such and such" or "we need all cars moved from the garage/lot for repainting parking lines tomorrow or you will be towed." When they did the assigned parking thing, they gave us notice less than two days in advance that all spots would become assigned and anyone in an assigned spot after that first day would be towed. Umm...what if someone was out of town' Dumb. Note to Stone Arch staff: give residents a strong week's notice of major changes and a reminder notice or two the few days before.

For tv/internet, they originally had contracts with Sky Cable (or similar), a DirecTV service, and Campus Communications, the worst internet provider in the history of the internet. The DirecTV was nice b/c they give you about 20 free channels - some local ones and MSNBC, Weather channel, CNN, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, and a few others. We only cared about Comedy Central so this worked out great.

The internet provider charged us $46 a month and it was just awful service. It went down a lot and you could never get a hold of anyone at the place. They also changed the DNS server names (when you type in, say, "Google.com," a DNS server points you to the network address the internet uses to find Goodle's site, for example) so no websites worked. I have a degree in IT and worked for Geek Squad, a local airline's IT department, and currently in support for Target's IT department and the guy's like, "Um, did you check the cable connection'" He said he'd come out but would charge me $50 if it was something with my computer. I'm like, "Listen, a-hole - I know more about PC's than you ever will - come fix this."

Yeah, so avoid Campus Communications at all costs if it's still an option! They finally got Qwest in 2006 - thank the lord. Extremely fast and reliable.

Storage units are pretty big - I think 10 feet tall, six feet deep, and 4-5 feet wide - for $15.

I guess I can't really say anything bad about this place. Sure, I could tell you the story about a few drug dealers who were forcibly removed by the DEA once night. Ok, quick story - in the 701 building, I woke up at about 4 am to what I thought was thunder. It was like, "BOOM!" I thought lightning struck outside my window. Then I heard this whispering from below (my window was open) and this guy's like, "Do another one"..."BOOM!" "Ok, what in f's name is going on" is what I said.

There were a couple of guys hiding behind the electrical box outside on the first level, tossing what turned out to be "flash bangs" at the window of the first apartment, where the quality individuals who sold drugs apparently lived. (Those are $1,500 units by the way.) They then used an explosive device to open the door on the *other* side (garage side) of that unit, and nabbed, like, six dudes or so.

A little crazy but made me feel secure you can only get into those steel doors (on every apartment) with an explosive device!

Very few break-ins or anything that I ever heard of...there was an incident of a couple bikes being stolen from the garage once, yes, but those were people who did not lock their bikes either. You may have a spot for your bike above your garage stall but lock it anyway.

Laundry rooms on each floor were $1.25 for wash, $1.25 to dry...during the week, in the middle of the day, it's $1.00 and automatically gives you this "super cycle" business, which must be nice if you are not in a hurry b/c it adds 20 minutes to the wash time. (No change on drying.) I dryed large loads on high heat and never had any problems.

You use key fobs to get into the front doors and nice, solid keys for the heavy duty lock on the steel door to your place.

When packages are delivered, they usually just go to the office and they'll leave a note by the front door. The office never really double-checks who's picking the package up but I never heard any problems with this. (I had a Dell laptop delivered once - no problem.)

Location is seriously the best in Minneapolis - right across the river from downtown...beautiful views and the Stone Arch footbridge (an old railroad track) is one of the most romantic spots in the city, according to a search I did online once. Being single, well, it was just a cool place to blade/bike across. There's a nice little park kitty-corner from the apartments, Tugs, Vics, and Pracna down the street for great outdoor drinks in the summer, the Stone Arch movie theater about four blocks down (previously the St Anthony Main theater until recently, I think), and you can take a cab downtown for $5. I worked at City Center (6th and Hennepin) and it took me 25 minutes to walk.

All of my friends were always jealous of my place! I would absolutely live there again. Definitely. Only reason I'm not is I'm taking a Target position in Denver for a little while and then coming back. Will probably buy something at that point.

I know this was long but I don't like reviews that are like, "This place sucked!" or anything w/no detail.

And to quash any silly comments about my working at Stone Arch, no, I do not! Just happy there.

Leave a comment if you have any questions! Just live there - you'll like it.

User Responses
From: fabs1142	Date: 08/16/2007
For the Section 424 requirements, what do you mean "bumped up to $51k in the next year?" Does that mean that the requirement changed, or that the $51k only applies if you're in the second year? I make just under $50, and am looking at leasing a place here. Would this provision apply to me or not?

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