urbanMSP

I've been back to going to Valleyfair once or twice a week for the first time since the pandemic. Still no new B&M inverted coaster, but a few minor changes of note: 1) Security surprisingly is more relaxed despite some high profile incidents and having to discontinue haunt because kids these da...

Haven't we determined by now that there's no market for / no developers just begging for the chance to build 5 over 2 mixed use buildings. As opposed to only doing it if forced to include retail as a condition of the city approving the apartments, and then the retail stays mostly vacant?

I guess shoving waste into the ground in a landfill is better than burning it and getting heat and electricity from it, greatly compacting the size, and recovering the metal from it.

Or else we could fund the police enough that they can make traffic violations illegal again and go back up to 90,000 traffic stops a year.

Yeah, unless it's 3 AM, if "there's not a vehicle in the vicinity" it's a pretty good indication the signal is unwarranted.

Every new single family home that gets built gets sold, so I'm not sure we have "enough" of them. It's true that there's a lot of people living alone or with one other person in single family homes. I live in one with my sister, a elderly lady across the street lives in one alone, Kitty co...

Wonder how much it would cost to custom order trucks that hold a sub-optimal amount of water? Presumably paywalled article that just came out: Fire trucks can't get through and there's a lot of other issues Bryant Ave, so they're changing the design going forward. https://www.startribune.com/minneap...

Were "those people" paying customers that were behaving decently?

So, why doesn't the city pass an ordinance requiring restaurants to have indoor seating if that's a goal of the city? It's not like this isn't an industry trend (see also the "Demolition Man Taco Bell in Brooklyn Park" and how few Pizza Huts still have seating any more) so unless there's a...

Denying a building permit for something that is allowed by zoning is a good way for the city to be sued.

Is there some sort of city ordinance or zoning district thing here that requires in-person dining that I'm not aware of?

Lake Elmo
Lake Minnetonka Regional Park
Flandrau State Park

So I guess with Shakopee we have a list of the four in the state.

I actually can't remember ever being at a municipal swimming pool, nowadays my thing it so buy a season pass to ValleyFair and hang out there on hot days.

Shakopee looking at spending $7 million to rebuild SandVenture, one of four sand bottom swimming pools in Minnesota. The pool itself is 50 years old and leaks and the building also needs replacing. City council is very reluctant to unilaterally impose new taxes, so intially they were planning on hav...

https://i.imgur.com/OgsUet3.jpg 187 Unit rental townhouse prooposed on Manning Avenue and 80th, displacing four single family detached houses. . https://cityofstillwater.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=1524&meta_id=120742 Although the area is guided for medium density resident...

I'd imagine that there's the same issue going on that sunk both the Hy-Vee and Lakewinds in Bloomington and why Hy-Vee is now demanding locations big enough so they can also sell things such as women's shoes. Groceries are such a low margain business and the price of eggs notwithstanding, constructi...

I've never worked in downtown so I don't know- are there similar "reactionaries" working downtown that are horrified at rumors that the company might be relocating to the suburbs and whose tentacles have to reach deep into every aspect of the business?

There's also chatter on Reddit to the effect that Walmart found it too difficult and expensive to staff the place due to the proximity of Minneapolis and their living wage ordinance. My take is that any kind of regional commercial in the area is doomed due to the relatively poor freeway access relat...

I work for a large company in the suburbs that is similarly trying to vastly reduce their real estate footprint. Back when we worked in the office there'd be periodic grapevine rumors that we were moving downtown, and the rank and file employees were pretty much universally horrified by that thought...

Usually the only reason they close a store that isn't performly poorly is if it's a non-SuperCenter and they can't convert it to a SuperCenter, either because it's too small or, in the case of Silver Lake Commons, is prohibited by a lease agreement. https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/brooklyn...

Kind of doubt people will appreciate their houses burning down when the fire department shows up in a small cute vehicle instead of a honking big truck full of lots of water to spray before a hose line can be established. There's a reason firefighters drive big trucks and it's not because they want ...