urbanMSP

I didn't see a specific thread for The Yard so I'll post this here, ...

Its being talked about over in the Park System thread in the General forum.

Last tower crane is going up.

Walking by today a noticed that the elevator tower on the west tower is up about 5-6 floors and there is a good 3/4 for the 1st Floor steel posts in place for the tower to start to rise. I'm very surprised how much of the north side of the block will not be used by the towers. I do know housing will come but until then there is a lot of green space or parking.

I posted some new construction updates from today:
http://tomabouttown.wordpress.com/2014/ ... lls-fargo/

Can someone tell me what's on top of the North building? Looks bright yellow and is too pixelated on the webcam

Can someone tell me what's on top of the North building? Looks bright yellow and is too pixelated on the webcam

Concrete pump. They'll use it to pour the floors when they get up higher.

Walking by today a noticed that the elevator tower on the west tower is up about 5-6 floors and there is a good 3/4 for the 1st Floor steel posts in place for the tower to start to rise. I'm very surprised how much of the north side of the block will not be used by the towers. I do know housing will come but until then there is a lot of green space or parking.

Does anyone know, is this part of downtown covered by the "no new surface parking" rule? And, if so, does it apply to these sites which were parking lots before construction?

Not sure about the no new surface parking rule, but I'm sure construction of the residential portion of this project will start before the two towers are open for business.

Not sure about the no new surface parking rule, but I'm sure construction of the residential portion of this project will start before the two towers are open for business.

do you mean the residential on the south or north side?I thought the birth side of the towers was going to sit empty for a while

The last I read, the residential portions, of both buildings, on the northeast side, were on hold. However, they wanted to start construction of them before finishing construction of the towers + residences on the southwest side (facing the park).

phase i: office portions, park, and residences facing the park.
phase ii: residences on the NE sides of both buildings.

Admittedly, I haven't been following this one too intensely.

The construction duration on the residential buildings on the north side will be so much shorter than the towers, there's no reason for them to get ahead of themselves. They'll use that open space for staging for as long as they possibly can, and that will have the added benefit of giving them flexibility to respond to market conditions when they (or whoever the sell the plats to) actually are ready to go ahead with them.

I just mean those could easily be used as surface parking in the mean time... if they were allowed to.

Well Fargo has mandated that all construction be complete before employees move into the building. Everything is being scheduled out to be completed at the same time and that includes the residential portions.

Well Fargo has mandated that all construction be complete before employees move into the building. Everything is being scheduled out to be completed at the same time and that includes the residential portions.

But the current construction plan leaves the north eastern thirds of both blocks as blank slates. So at some point those will be constructed on.

During a planning commission meeting Ryan claimed that proposals for those block portions would be forthcoming and that while construction would start later it would be completed at the same time. This was presented as something very likely to occur, not as simply a possibility. No idea if anything has changed (air rights development?) or if they were being completely honest in the first place.

Real steel girders are a couple of floors up now on the first tower. Already looking massive as you walk by.

This project will be massive. Twice the acreage and twice the sidewalk frontage as IDS or Pillsbury Center. Hopefully the frontage gets done right.

Not sure what is going on with the supposed 2-3 floors. With the steel construction and lack of an elevator door where the 3rd floor should be, I'm not sure what that space will be used for. I know there will be residential blocking this portion of the tower on both sides eventually. But not sure what will go in there as there is no way for it to be parking and they already have an IT operation center so I can't see that as being used for that. But I do see this as moving along very quickly as far as the steel construction goes. I was surprised how much had been added since I was by a week ago.

With the steel construction and lack of an elevator door where the 3rd floor should be, I'm not sure what that space will be used for. I know there will be residential blocking this portion of the tower on both sides eventually. But not sure what will go in there as there is no way for it to be parking and they already have an IT operation center so I can't see that as being used for that.

It could be used for a legal department where you want to restrict access to documents. We have part of a floor intentionally blocked from the elevators for exactly this reason. As in, elevators pass through the space but won't stop there. You're forced to go through a security entrance to get to it.

Nope. Probably just a service mezzanine.