urbanMSP

I don't know that I buy the college students angle, at least for Hennepin County. Hennepin County doesn't have many colleges/universities that draw people from outstate. Not sure if you mean "from outside the state" or "from Greater Minnesota" when you say outstate in this insta...

Dayton won in a not-so-great year for Democrats nationally with a third-party candidate on the ticket, so who knows? But the DFL has become even more metro-centric since then and relies on an awful lot of moderate suburban folks. Hepola is running as pro-choice, reforming the tax system (whatever th...

There very well might be cheaper ways to fix this whole intersection. That said, how much money would you save by "gently descend[ing]" Hwy 53 to street level? Given that Hwy 53 runs concurrent with I-535 (which is literally just the bridge to Superior - only 53 continues beyond that point...

it certainly seems like we have plenty of empty commercial space around here. Really? The ironclad/moxy corner. Anything else? I was speaking more citywide, where there's plenty of empty spaces. Though, as you note, the area nearby is actually pretty well filled in. The original proposal had someth...

I don't know what the correct mix for a ground floor in a spot like this is, and it certainly seems like we have plenty of empty commercial space around here. But, like others, I wonder the appeal of townhomes here - there's no privacy to speak of given that these aren't elevated at all. On other bu...

Is the "Can of Worms" the cluster of ramps where I-35, I-535, and Highway 53 come together? Seems like it would cheaper and simpler to gut some of it including the elevated section of Highway 53 going north. Don't have to worry about a concrete bridge falling when there isn't one. ;) That...

My guess is that 6 (if it continues to exist post-E Line implementation as a duplicative local backup) will stay on Hennepin but simply not make a stop at 24th. i.e. NB stop after 25th will be Franklin Ave for both E Line and local routes. That would make sense, but the document says 24th and Henne...

One oddity I forgot to add to my post: The city is moving the Hennepin/24th NB local bus stop to 24th and Dupont. I guess this means the 6 will take a right on 24th, pick up at Dupont, and then turn left on Dupont and turn back on to Hennepin? An interesting solution, though given how often buses ar...

Overall, this looks like a pretty good layout for Hennepin. My assortment of random thoughts: -I love that they are continuing the bike path north of Franklin rather than forcing a right and crossing at Bryant. This was something I'd commented on while they were collecting feedback. I only wish they...

There is quite a bit of underutilized land at Nicollet and Lake, including north of the Greenway. Would be cool if there was any way to do a larger area redevelopment (not unlike the Ford Site, but at a much smaller scale). Obviously not possible with so many different landowners and you'd have to b...

Bloomington already gets named in the Census for our metro area, does it not? Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington. But I think that in the absence of some sense of place , it's hard to give a suburb like Bloomington the psychological distinction of being a "city." It's a large suburb with a s...

There’s nothing firm yet, but the county seems to be eyeing something like cutting their overall (not just downtown) footprint in half. Given that so many admin functions are downtown, you can bet they’re going to be offloading a greater percentage of downtown space than satellite sites.

One would think the City (and county) would be more aggressive about getting their workers back downtown as soon as possible, to help boost skyway businesses and perceptions of activity/safety around downtown. But that doesn't seem to be the case. City leadership has a vested interest in livening u...

There's a lot of stuff closed in the Uptown area, but what's interesting is that the stretch of Hennepin from Lake to 31st looks better than it has since essentially pre-uprising. A few closed-up places, but decent foot traffic and open businesses not boarded up.

The developer says he's renovating it for a "creative office user."

https://twitter.com/seandsweeney/status ... 2560247808

Man, what a downgrade in terms of looks. I don't have a lot of hope that this doesn't end up looking cheap as hell.

I do like the concept of the North Loop alignment, as it would be nice to improve access to the northern part of the neighborhood, but I assume you can't really do grade separation because of the creek. That would make the "red link" option too slow. The pink is intriguing, because it woul...

Wasn't there talk pre-pandemic of Target vacating (either partially or fully) its City Center space? Between their HQ and the Brooklyn Park location, they have a ton of space. Kinda feels like this was inevitable, pandemic or not.

I'm a bit skeptical that many people will choose a schedule like the one you described (three days in the office, two at home). I think it's more likely that people are fulltime office or fulltime WFH, and there are just more people in the latter category than before and more flexibility overall. I...

I really dislike Minneapolis' recent love affair with two-way bike paths. It can sometimes be justified, but we just reconstructed Hennepin south of Lake with separate bike lanes, so we're forcing a weird two-way maneuver for southbound bikers at one of the busiest intersections in the city! It woul...