urbanMSP

Hmm. I don't see any details yet on the Minneapolis website -- I thought I'd heard that there would be an attempt to "wrap" the building, since it has some pretty big setbacks, though I'm not sure about how that would work for floor widths. Parts of the old building would still probably ha...

Some maps of the possible alignments are here, though detail is lacking for the northern A, B, and C segments: http://bottineautransitway.org/library/maps_and_alignments.htm If they use the D1 alignment (which looks very likely at this point), it'd run west on Olson Memorial Boulevard and then turn ...

I believe LRT is "Phase 1". Heavy-rail is "Phase 2". I don't know how the money works out between the two, though.

Somewhat related to the proposed "Zip Rail" line to Rochester, but focused on freight, a study just got started to look at a future traffic on the DM&E line through the city and whether a bypass route would be needed. (I'd generally say no -- it's probably better to just grade-separate...

Yeah, it's a bit frustrating. St Paul doesn't seem to require site plans to be published in the same way Minneapolis does now, so I've certainly been flying blind with this project. I don't think they're going to make the space appreciably worse than what it was though -- it had been a 1-story build...

Yes. The Wedge Co-op has a similar, bad, layout. Their website says the building went up in 1992 and was expanded in 1997 and 2001. Yet another artifact of the great Dark Age of City Planning.

The story of the stairway between Summit Ave and United Hospital drags on.

http://www.twincities.com/stpaul/ci_208 ... t-stairway

One improvement I'd like to see made to Nicollet Mall itself is the addition of pedestrian bump-outs/bulb-outs at the street crossings. Most of the cross streets are effectively 5 lanes wide because of parking, and I always feel like I have to peer around some fairly large vehicles to make sure the ...

It wasn't "essentially half-vacant" until the existing tenants started getting kicked out because of the looming Trader Joe's proposal. As far as I can tell, this new building will have far less square footage than the existing buildings have. They're taking two 2-story buildings and one 1...

Just starting a Hiawatha thread again since we had one before.

Anyone know the status of the addition to the Franklin Avenue shops? The last time I was over there, it looked like the track hadn't been installed for the 4 new storage bays (I presume they're storage bays...).

Yeah, I was thinking yesterday that combining tennis and volleyball there might be a good idea. Anyone know where existing tennis tournaments happen in the state today? I'm guessing they must be held at some of the college campuses around the Twin Cities (and possibly outstate).

I haven't been able to find anything online, but one project happening in Rochester at the moment is construction of a new building for the Mayo Clinic's Nuclear Medicine program (at least I think it's a Mayo building -- the other likely candidate would be Olmsted Medical Clinic). Apparently there w...

Finance & Commerce brings news that Tower Investments, developer of the Elk Run project, owes $741,706.76 in fines and back taxes across 69 properties in Olmsted County (mostly in the Pine Island area). According to the company, payments have been delayed due to appeals by them against the count...

A reminder of the construction webcams:

East side of concourse/waiting room:
http://ext1.mortenson.com/sitecam/uniondepot.html

West side:
http://ext1.mortenson.com/sitecam/uniondepot2.html

I forget exactly what this project was, but there's a foundation sticking out of the ground at Main St & 6th St SE, just east of the Pillsbury "A" Mill. I rode past there on my bike today and would have taken a picture, but I was trying to keep to a schedule.

As far as I know, Washington won't be ready for buses until next year (2013). Google's aerial imagery got updated (supposedly from early April this year), and that showed that a stretch of pavement just west of Church Street hadn't even been ripped up yet, so I'm fairly doubtful about having even te...

Block E really should do something to open up their skyway level to allow relatively small pocket businesses there. The foot traffic through the skyway is enormous, particularly in the morning and evening as people go between the downtown core and the B/C ramps (and the Hawthorne/A ramps to some ext...

Metro Transit has a website for the Midtown Corridor Alternatives Analysis: http://metrotransit.org/midtown-transitway.aspx Minneapolis is also recommending that a streetcar line be built to serve some part of North Minneapolis, since it's most likely that the Bottineau corridor will follow the BNSF...

The owner of the Minneapolis Armory wants to do a $16 million renovation, which would likely include a new second level inside. Apparently this has been spurred by plans for a new Vikings stadium, and the armory could be a party zone for Vikings game days (don't ask me how that would work...) http:/...

I think there's a pot of $60 million in DEED money that the Southwest folks are eyeballing (though they'd only need a fraction for engineering work).