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Page3 of17 MEMORANDUM I. Background In the fall of2003, Plaintiff purchased an option on property located at 343, 401, 403, and 409 Oak Grove Street and 416 Clifton Avenue in the Loring Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis. The property consisted of a surface parking lot which served nearby office buildings including 430 Oak Grove, another property acquired by Plaintiff. Plaintiff purchased its option with the intention of developing the property. The property was, at all relevant times, zoned as part of an Institutional Office Residence District ("OR3"). The OR3 zoning classification restricts the height of buildings to six stories or eighty-four feet. Furthermore, because the property is located within one thousand feet of the ordinary high water mark of Loring Pond, it is also subject to the standards of the Shoreland Overlay District, which imposes a height restriction of two and one-half stories or thirty-five feet. Plaintiff engaged the architectural firm of Meyer, Sherer & Rockcastle, Ltd. ("MS&R") in late 2003. Garth Rockcastle ("Rockcastle") and Paul Mellblom of MS&R were the chief architects in charge of designing Pare Centrale, as the project came to be known, as well as assisting in the process of applying for needed land use permits and variances. After conducting initial research of the project site, Plaintiff s architects generated two potential design concepts; one consisting of a slender mixed-use tower with an eight thousand square feet footprint bordered by two-story townhouses fronting on the adjacent streets ("the tower"), the other a six-story "slab" building with a nineteen thousand [1] square feet footprint built to the property lines ("the slab"). After taking a variety offactors into consideration, including economic viability, Plaintiff eventually settled on the tower design over the slab option. Because the contemplated tower project exceeded the height restrictions of the two applicable zoning districts, in July of 2004, Plaintiff applied for two conditional use permits ("CUPs"): one to increase the maximum permitted height from two and one-half stories or thirty-five feet to twenty-one stories and two hundred and thirty feet and a second to allow for a multiple family project containing one hundred and four units. At the same time, Plaintiff applied for two variances: one to reduce the required corner side yard setback off Clifton Place from forty-eight to sixteen feet for the proposed building and four feet for the proposed patio area and a second to reduce the rear yard setback off the south property line from the required forty-five feet to nineteen feet for the proposed building and eight feet for the proposed patio area. Finally, Plaintiff also requested a major site plan review. In August of2004, CPED staff reviewed Plaintiffs application and issued a fourteen-page report recommending that the City of Minneapolis Planning Commission "Planning Commission") deny the application. Later that month, acting on the recommendation ofCPED, the Planning Commission denied Plaintiffs application by votes of five to two on the CUPs, five to two on the variances, and six to one on the site plan. http://www.minnlawyer.com/userfiles/pdfi.Order%20(Final).htrn 9/17/2009