urbanMSP

It would be a shame to see all this happen and the only major transit improvement be... a park and ride. This is the same municipality that believes it is losing its rural character because of sidewalks. None of this has any shot for at least 15 years and the old folks are dead. Eh, the select urba...

The main level of the NE wing (closest to 77th) is gone, starting to take out the basement there. They're also pushing debris out of the side of the tower.

Pentagon Park also gets some points in my book for including a tighter grid of infill streets. Centennial Lakes is bounded by mega-blocks, including the explicably super-sized stroad of Parklawn Avenue. Props for the cool bridges on 76th and Parklawn tho, and spectacular Edina Promenade on the north...

Those five buildings around a pond on the west side scream Centennial Lakes office towers. Which, while beautiful, is still very auto-oriented. I think the community generally views Stroadtennial Lakes as a success, though. In terms of public improvements, it's arguably the most beautiful urban par...

^^Am I out of the loop or is there a new development planned for when this tower is taken down? Yes, this is Phase I of the new Pentagon Park. I believe one ~20 story building, two 8-story buildings, and two parking garages. The long term plan is also to raise up 77th St and create a Centennial Lak...

Perhaps this laughable image of Edina mayor Jim Hovland wielding a sledgehammer will remind you you're still in Edina: http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/image0011.jpg According to the website, the main body of the tower is supposed to come down next week: http://hillcrestdev...

All the glass is cleared out of the tower, and part of one of the walls.

This morning, Minneapolis Fire Dept was using the building for practice drills:


There's also some ambitious graffiti on top of the tower:

Actually looking at the site more carefully, I realize that the area is almost completely fully developed, assuming wetlands in the vicinity of American and E Bush Lake Rd won't be developed. It makes it kind of shocking how context-insensitive the new portion of American Blvd is there: https://www....

With the westernmost leg of Richfield's 66th St rebuild (Xerxes to Penn) going forward without bike infrastructure (the rest will have protected cycletracks - woot!), there has been talk of putting bike something (no idea...sharrows? bike boulevard?) on 67th. It would be great if the sidewalk along...

Site plan out of the early 90s. But it's got a little crosswalk across the moat of parking lot on all sides, so it's ped-friendly and/or transit-oriented I suppose? It's easy to dismiss Bloomington being Bloomington, but I think the Normandale Lake area is growing into an urban - if somewhat dystopi...

Parkdales office complex for sale. http://m.bizjournals.com/twincities/blog/real_estate/2014/11/the-parkdales-office-st-louis-park-for-sale.html?r=full For reference, this is the sad looking offices and parking lots south of West End. Would love to see this redeveloped with access roads run through...

France definitely needs boulevard trees. And it would have been nice if they used this opportunity to reimagine it with on-street parking to encourage buildings to address the street. I agree, but when I met with engineers on the project, they really emphasized that this isn't so much about making ...

Thanks for sharing the pics. The frontage by Byerly's looks pretty good, but how is the walk to the front door? Seems like fairly blank walls facing the sidewalk. Also don't love the porkchop / free right across that new sidewalk for the new 71 France driveway. But it's definitely miles better than ...

At first glance, it makes one think that it's *got* to be one of the oldest houses in Richfield. I'm digressing, but for truer old house gazing, I assume you've been around the Oak Grove subdivision? I swear the 20s was like the best time for single-family residential development, judging by Oak Gr...

Previous to today, I hadn't gotten around to looking at which homes were going away. Now I see that it's the entire south side of 66th. I've always wondered what the story was behind this one with the Bavarian style. I see now that it was built in 1975, meaning that "charm" is likely tack...

Are there maps posted somewhere? Best resource is here: http://richfieldsweetstreets.org/66thstreetreconstruction. You can see the recommended layout east of 35W, and the possible layouts to the west. Again the recommended layouts are 4B Penn-35W and Minimum Impact Xerxes-Penn. Note that a lot of t...

The Richfield Transportation Commission voted on Wednesday to support the full cycletrack design between Oliver and 35W (as well as the already-approved cycletrack from 35W to Richfield Pkwy. This will go to another public meeting next week (Thursday, 4-7p, Woodlake Nature Center), and will have to ...

Furniture store is entirely gone now, including most of the rubble. That went pretty quick once it got started. Cool! I may be the only Richfielder excited, but I can't wait for the new building to go up. I think Richfield really got the best side of the building. There's also supposed to be a trai...

The new store taking shape from the parking lot under a weird canopy/walkway thing. This development is called 71 France, based on the logo on the retaining wall at the intersection. EDIT: Yep, 71 France http://www.popearch.com/projects/byerlys-mixed-use-development https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2...

http://finance-commerce.com/2014/11/financing-delays-lyndale-gardens/ Looks like this might take awhile! Yup, the developer was just at Richfield City Council asking for more time to act on their permit. The fact that Wellington is moving forward with the rest of their development is a good sign fo...