North Loop Neighborhood

[David Greene]

Interactive map (love that basemap!): http://www.startribune.com/newsgraphics/218524411.html

They certainly do have an odd definition of "longstanding."

[lordmoke]

I also like that Deja Vu is marked as a "Longstanding Favorite."

Does this mean that they can now advertise using the review:

"A longstanding favorite." - The Star Tribune

[twincitizen]

Something on the HPC Agenda might be of interest: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/meeting ... S1P-112941

219 2nd St N looks to be getting a pretty serious rehab into office space.

[uptown067]

Its great that all of these developments are taking place, but I wish there was a greater focus on enhancing the livability of this area. There is virtually no charm in this area and walking around during the day is a truly awkward experience.

The talk of a park is a nice start, but its just a start. I think the most important thing that could be done is decreasing the number of lanes on washington ave n to one lane in each direction and widening the sidewalks and adding A LOT of trees. Below are several examples of cities around the US that we could take some cues from.

Seattle:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=47.60133 ... wAGWlIDABA

Portland:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=45.52520 ... wQGajYCgCA

Milwaukee (yes, Milwaukee):
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=43.03358 ... wAGLnIH4Cw

Denver:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.75031 ... n5wQGL5oFg

[robotlollipop]

Those big trees in Seattle add a lot of character to the streets. Only place I can think of that we have similar is St. Anthony.

[Nathan]

Its great that all of these developments are taking place, but I wish there was a greater focus on enhancing the livability of this area. There is virtually no charm in this area and walking around during the day is a truly awkward experience.

The talk of a park is a nice start, but its just a start. I think the most important thing that could be done is decreasing the number of lanes on washington ave n to one lane in each direction and widening the sidewalks and adding A LOT of trees. Below are several examples of cities around the US that we could take some cues from.

Seattle:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=47.60133 ... wAGWlIDABA

Portland:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=45.52520 ... wQGajYCgCA

Milwaukee (yes, Milwaukee):
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=43.03358 ... wAGLnIH4Cw

Denver:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.75031 ... n5wQGL5oFg

Trees are wonderful, yes, but I think it's not allowed in the area, as it's a historic warehouse district. That's why there is talk of park space and such to green and soften the area. *Correct me if I'm wrong of course, peoples.

[MNdible]

Re: trees.

IIRC, they didn't include trees when they redid Washington for historic integrity reasons, but have more recently decided that trees are OK after all, and are slowly adding them.

[min-chi-cbus]

Thanks for the links....some great ideas in there, for sure!

I for one do not like streets with angular parking, so I'd strike that one out immediately. Allowing parking along the side of the road provides a safe buffer for people on the sidewalk and promotes walking, so I'd be okay with free street parking (well basically free, permit parking maybe). On a side note, I was shocked how huge Portland's Warehouse District looks, as well as their "downtown" or "CBD"! There was such a large area of built environment with very few surface parking lots, I was so impressed (never been to Portland).

What I think eventually (like within the next 5 years) needs to be done is to simply replace the existing sidewalk and street infrastructure and repave and revamp everything. Yes, a big project, but this could easily be an area that will triple or quadruple in population over the next 20-25 years, and become one of the truly premier urban neighborhoods in the USA. Lord knows this area hasn't seen any city tax dollars since it was last in commission (like 1940). I've seen the streets there with cobblestone showing underneath the withered blacktop -- or complete neglect. That was also 6 years ago, when my then-fiance and I were looking for a photographer who lived in the area, so maybe things have changed since then.

What I like about the North Loop is that it's kind of like building a new uber-urban neighborhood from scratch, and it's a unique opportunity to do something novel and exciting instead of muck it up by being contempt. The more variety of living options a city has, generally the more people like said city. Not that I'm seeking others' approval of Minneapolis, but let's just say it's nice when people have good things to say about your city.

[Wedgeguy]

As Far as street south of Washington go they are still the cobblestone and patch work crap. I will hope that they do some work at rebuilding the streets with the blocks that they can salvage. With the new buildings being built, it needs to be done. Maybe they will wait until they get 3rd street more built up. So they don't destroy the street with trucks as they build new buildings. 4th is now pretty much new pavement so I'd hope that the street in between Washington and 4th and 10th and the railroad trench will be more in the fashion of the old block streets with some real trees plants with excellent sidewalks.

[min-chi-cbus]

Well bricks/cobblestone last a helluva long time, they're just expensive. Trucks can drive on them for decades with no major issues (a brick here or there, sure).

[FISHMANPET]

So this kind of boggles my mind, but doesn't actually because I get how transit works.

Why is service so bad in North Loop? Shouldn't there be enough residents to run a stub of the 14 that only goes between downtown and 10th Ave?

[MNdible]

It definitely needs to be improved, and there's been talk with no action to build out shuttles to serve some of the close in neighborhoods.

I assume that transit to the North Loop is so bad because, until very recently, nobody lived there to ride transit.

[FISHMANPET]

The fact that people aren't clamoring for it kind of worries me. If people are moving here with their cars, that's not really the best use of such a close in location.

I for one refuse to move their until transit is improved, because I hate to be tied to my car for everything, and I feel like that's what would happen living in the North Loop.

[woofner]

There is actually really really good transit service in the North Loop, like two Hi Frequency routes with service on the same corridor, 2-3 minute effective frequencies at rush hour good. It just runs on 7th St N, which of course is not very accessible to the part of the North Loop that has been developed so far. You could theoretically detour some of that service to Washington, but even if it gained a bunch of new riders it would certainly still add to the total travel time of the majority of riders.

I doubt that a short Downtown-only branch of the 14 would attract enough ridership to stand on its own legs. It could work as an extension of an East-West downtown circulator, which the Downtown Council and CPED have wanted for a long time, but the 14's route is so serpentine downtown that it would probably be too confusing to work well. They'd need to figure out an east-west transit spine before they could make that work, and I haven't seen any political will in the city council to stand up to the Downtown Council's opposition to that idea (CEOs would melt down if they only had one option for their town car to drop them off at IDS).

I've thought for a long time that the 7 should run on Washington instead of 1st St for a bit of a boost, but Metro Transit planners are afraid that they'd lose a lot of riders who wouldn't want to walk around the superblocks between Washington and the river. Certainly the City deserves blame for doing next to nothing about the bloated blocks in this area, but really there are lots of cut-throughs that would work for regular commuters, the only part that is really lacking in cut-throughs is the area around 8th Ave that City just allowed the SolBorgs to permanently cut off. Of course zillion dollar transit modeling software may not take those often informal paths into consideration.

Anyway MSP Perverse Transit Outcome #35: Broadway Streetcar will likely boost service quite a bit, and as long as it takes to build a streetcar around here it seems to take even longer to build LRT, so we might see that in service not too long after Bottineau. A relatively cheap improvement I've ranted about on the internet for a while would be converting the 4th St viaduct into a reversible freeway ramp for SOVs on one side and a two-lane transit facility on the other, and if that were done it would be pretty easy to do an online station at 8th or 10th, speeding up access to the CBD a bit and potentially dramatically improving reverse commutes. But despite occasional farts of Freeway BRT planning I've never heard anyone who isn't an internet dork talk about that option.

Ugh, sorry I've worked in the North Loop for almost 6 years now so I think about this way too much.

[Wedgeguy]

You are fine Woofner. You see the practicality of what works and does not work as you see things in action day after day. Something that planners have few clues about except planning spreadsheet. What is supposed to work in theory, does not always pan out in the real world!

[MNdible]

Studies continue about setting up a district heating and cooling system for the North Loop, powered by waste heat from HERC.

[twincitizen]

^Does it strike anyone else as strange that we're just discussing this now, in 2013? The neighborhood has been growing for quite some time; I just figure these discussions would have started, say, around the time Target Field was approved in 2006.


Unrelated to that, I took my parents to Smack Shack yesterday. The food was amazing (lobster mac & cheese, 'nuff said), and my Dad got a kick out of the building's truck docks and loading dock to patio conversion. They had no idea we were just 3 blocks from Target Field. Can't beat $0.25/hr for parking either on non-game days! I thought it was pretty cool that my lifelong suburbanite, republican dad immediately made the connection between development and reducing property taxes, as we looked down Washington at the many construction projects.

[jet777]

That's great, entrench the HERC by routing its energy to enough surrounding buildings to ensure that however many thousands of residents move to the neighborhood, we all still get asthma and die from cancer.

In all seriousness though, at its surface everyone likes the idea of using energy from burning garbage you're already burning to heat and cool buildings. But is this really looking 10-20 years down the road? If we try to see that far, we may second guess burning garbage at the center of our future residential core. As yet another side note, for those who ever worried about HERC smells wafting into Target Field: anyone who lives near it knows it never became an issue because the majority of smells are actually from garbage juice at street level that gets leaked on every side street the hundreds of trucks drive through on a daily basis. If you don't believe me, head down there this week when that garbage juice sizzles on the 100+ degree pavement...

[David Greene]

Mmm...juice.

[Minnekid]

^I thought it was pretty cool that my lifelong suburbanite, republican dad immediately made the connection between development and reducing property taxes, as we looked down Washington at the many construction projects.

My question is when are the property taxes going to drop. Also sorry for my ignorance, being a teenager who does not pay taxes, how do you pay property taxes for an apartment?