urbanMSP

Wow. serious let down. Are the first floors parking? The original design was so original with the brick and glass cut outs... yikes.
*guess it just looks to be a radiused section on the 5th side, not parking, but still boring :/ No Retail...

Looks good, but yeah I wonder what happened to the towers proposal? Anyone good at estimating what 250,000 sq-ft looks like?

Looks good, but yeah I wonder what happened to the towers proposal? Anyone good at estimating what 250,000 sq-ft looks like?

That proposal is up the street, a different developer. It was only rumored that Be The Match would be a tenant for that... The original proposal for this site was also 8 stories and can be seen in a previous biz journal article in this forum.

It is a letdown. Like you said, fotoapparatic, those towers looked really great and would have made a great addition to the North Loop. I wonder if studies were done to determine whether or not the suns glare off of an all glass high-rise would have been an issue during Twins games (they are both owned by the Pohlads). I'll leave it up to more knowledgeable folks than myself to determine whether or not that would have even been an issue.

Any addition to the NoLo is great news but I'm disappointed.

Ah, Sorry fotoapparatic; I thought it was the same buildings. So we may still yet get those really cool all glass high rise buildings.

Still, I don't see a problem with this building. Looks nice to me and it's not like it's single-story or anything. Lack of retail - yeah, that's a shame. Hopefully they reconsider that part of it.

As far as "lack of retail" goes, I would bet there is some sort of retail. It might just be for the 6am-6pm hours of the building and not for the neighborhood. With 900 employees (according to the article) I see it as a good opportunity for a coffee shop, deli, cafeteria type or convenience store. Even with Holiday just across the street.

I base this on my time in many office buildings. Most of which are smaller than 900 employees and all definitely have SOMETHING during business hours.

I only thought it was a letdown because I thought this was the same block as the highrise. Now that I've been corrected, I don't mind this building. I do agree that some sort of retail is needed. Are there currently any coffee shops or deli's in the area?

Corner Coffee and Ye Olde Dry Docke (Darby's) are nearby.

Looks absolutely terrible in the new rendering, even by suburban office park standards. What a waste of a prime and visible location. I can't believe the North Loop neighborhood organization supported this.

"[The site] has a dynamic position as we enter downtown off Hwy 55 to the west. It announces your arrival downtown. Whatever we do with architecture, it's going to be important to signify that your (sic) entering the urban area. We want it to be a gateway type of image for downtown Minneapolis." -- Bill Katter, executive VP of United Properties.

Heh. Wha' happened?

Looks absolutely terrible in the new rendering, even by suburban office park standards. What a waste of a prime and visible location. I can't believe the North Loop neighborhood organization supported this.

If John can't find a single good thing to say about it, you know it's ugly!

Seriously though, this makes 222 look like an architectural masterpiece. It would look right at home in the suburbs, yes, but here it has zero sense of context.

I think that's the office building I work in ... in Plymouth.

A rendering of the Shapco site/Be The Match HQ
http://www.metrocouncil.org/News-Events ... -deve.aspx

This was WAY better! Perhaps they (BizJournals) pulled the wrong image??

Perhaps they (BizJournals) pulled the wrong image??

It is the right image. Finance-Commerce has the same drawing on its Bone Marrow story. UP 'updated' the design it seems. I did like this part: "The rooftop will have views of the ballpark and downtown and include a fitness center, event space and an outdoor terrace."

Why would they (clearly) downgrade then? Money??

The BizJournals article says that a few years ago Be The Match was looking for 300k ft^2 with an option for an additional 150k ft^2, but this building is only 250k ft^2. That appears to be just barely half what they'll eventually need. That doesn't make much sense to me.

first couple floors look fine but after that it's a suburban office park non-descript nothing. this will add all these new office workers to that end of downtown and make the interchange station more viable from the get-go.

still this is not the "gateway" building developer makes mention of in previous rendering. a taller, less squat building perhaps would have allowed for some nuance. this is just very generic.

I thought preliminary design was weird in a bad way. This is just boring. Nothing lost.