News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Monday December 22nd 2025
Park & Franklin Lofts Resumes
 By DOUG HOVELSON, Tuffa Associates
 Tashitaa Tufaa speaking
The constructing of a 43-unit, four-story apartment building at Park Ave. and East Franklin Ave., in the Ventura Village neighborhood has resumed.
Tashitaa Tufaa, the building owner, says it will help fill a need for moderately priced, family-oriented rental housing in the core neighborhoods of south Minneapolis. “The focus of Park Franklin Lofts is to create attainable housing for people and their families who live and work in the city,” says Tufaa, who is a Twin Cities resident and business owner.
The 35,000 sq. ft. building”™s main entrance will be on Park Ave. and will have nine 3-bedroom and eight 2-bedroom apartments, along with 13 1-bedroom and 13 studio apartment homes. Tenant on-site parking is a 17-stall off-street surface parking lot for tenant use.
Tufaa started the project in the winter of 2017-18; but halted soon in 2018 because of its general contractor filing for bankruptcy just as the concrete foundation was started. Despite the setback,Tufaa clung to his dream,“I never gave up on the project, but I had to regroup and find a new project manager and construction partner.” He also had a growing school transportation business, Metropolitan Transportation Network (MTN), to operate. … Read the rest “Park & Franklin Lofts Resumes”
Remembering Bob Albee
 Robert Albee 1945 – 2020
 By CARZ NELSON
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Bob Albee was a great neighbor. He was a paragon of community involvement; his decades of work in Phillips spanned innumerable issues and organizations. He was generous as a mentor and a role model. He was a champion for social change. His work was fundamental to many neighborhood institutions that will continue well beyond his own life. Bob Albee has died, but his contributions to society will live on.Â
the alley Newspaper owes a special debt to him for his work with the newspaper. He was on the Alley Board of Directors from 1996 until late 1999. He was also the creator and first editor of the Ventura Village Neighborhood News feature in the alley.
Albee was from Huron, South Dakota. He graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1969 with a MA in the fields of Political Science and History. He helped start the radio station WOJB in the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation in Wisconsin in 1982. The station continues to bring community radio to the North Country to this day.
In 1991, he became the Assistant Director of the American Indian Community Development Corporation.… Read the rest “Remembering Bob Albee”
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