Richfield Rezoning Proposal Would Open Door to Five-Story Mixed-Use Buildings Along Penn Avenue

Richfield planners have placed a rezoning package on the August 11 City Council agenda that would reclassify roughly 40 acres along Penn Avenue South from single-family residential and light commercial to a new Transit-Oriented Community designation, allowing structures up to five stories and requiring ground-floor retail on parcels within 600 feet of the 66th Street Transit Station. If adopted, it would be the most aggressive upzoning the city has attempted since it revised its comprehensive plan in 2019.

The timing is deliberate. Metro Transit's C Line rapid bus service — which runs Penn Avenue from Brooklyn Center through Minneapolis and into Richfield — logged 3.2 million boardings in 2025, a figure the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority cited in a February memo as justification for denser land use along the entire corridor. Richfield sits directly beneath the flight path of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and has historically resisted tall buildings near its residential core, making this proposal a significant political pivot for a city of roughly 38,000 residents.

The proposal draws directly from the playbook Minneapolis used when it eliminated single-family-only zoning citywide under its Minneapolis 2040 plan, though Richfield's approach is geographically targeted rather than blanket. Community development staff have pointed to the success of the Via Sol apartment complex on Chicago Avenue in the Powderhorn neighborhood — a 120-unit project completed in 2023 that includes 24 affordable units under the Affordable Housing Trust Fund program — as a model for what mixed-income transit-adjacent development can look like at the suburban edge.

Developers Already Watching Penn Avenue

Three development groups have submitted pre-application inquiries to Richfield's Community Development Department since the rezoning language was circulated in draft form in May, according to city records. One of those inquiries involves a site at Penn Avenue and 64th Street currently occupied by a surface parking lot and a shuttered dry-cleaning business. Hennepin County property records show the two parcels last sold in 2017 for a combined $1.1 million; a comparable rezoned site in St. Louis Park's West End district traded hands in early 2025 for $4.8 million, illustrating how quickly land values can reprice once zoning certainty arrives.

Richfield's proposal includes an affordability hook: projects exceeding three stories must designate at least 10 percent of units at rents affordable to households earning 60 percent of area median income, which in Hennepin County currently equals roughly $1,340 per month for a one-bedroom apartment. Developers who voluntarily reach 20 percent affordable would qualify for a density bonus allowing a sixth floor. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency has flagged the corridor as a priority geography for its Workforce Housing Development Program grants in the current biennium, which could make the numbers pencil for mid-size builders who otherwise struggle with land costs in the southern metro.

What Comes Next

The Richfield Planning Commission holds a public hearing on July 22 at City Hall, 6700 Portland Avenue South, starting at 7 p.m. That session is the formal opportunity for residents and property owners to enter comments into the record before the package moves to the full council. Commissioners are expected to take particular interest in the proposal's parking minimums — the current draft sets a maximum of one stall per unit rather than a floor, a provision that drew pushback from several business owners along the corridor during a June open house.

If the council approves the rezoning in August, city staff estimate the first building permits under the new designation could be issued as early as the second quarter of 2027. Homeowners on the residential streets immediately west of Penn Avenue — Wood Lane, Dupont Avenue South — have begun organizing through the Richfield Neighborhood Association, and at least one petition opposing the proposal had gathered 340 signatures as of July 3. The council vote, whenever it comes, is unlikely to be quiet.