Downtown Minneapolis - News & General Topics

[Silophant]

I might head that way during lunch. I'll take a picture if I do.

[Wedgeguy]

Looks like I'll be heading DT today to get a peak at these displays.

[amiller92]

Photos of the displays here: https://twitter.com/ajm6792/status/639485047121117184

[HiawathaGuy]

So this isn't actually about downtown, but since the programs are all Downtown in the Crystal Court, can anyone that goes there see if there's any info on the L&H Station Project? A saw a tweet about the city that included a rendering of it so I'm wondering if there's any info about it there.

In the responsive but not terribly helpful category: yes.

There is a display about it. I looked at the pretty pictures, but that's about all I can tell you.

Thanks for the photos, sad that it looks as though they are all the same renderings within that thread though.

[FISHMANPET]

Yeah, those are pretty much the same pictures from the openhouse that happened this winter.

But there will be an updated on the project at tonight's CNO Land Use & Housing meeting, so I'll be sure to report back.

[Wedgeguy]

Was very much disappointed with the displays and told that to the lady that was doing a questioner. No real models, no real new information, and a lot of missing projects that I would have expected to have some presence there. There was to the best of my knowledge, no real advertising to get that this was even happening. I found out by accident when I looking on this site today and it started yesterday. On a scale of one to ten is was a dismal four.

A few question that I bought back, can anyone enlighten me:
1. Are there apartments facing the park in the park side ground level of the park portion of the Edition? Almost looks like the restaurant/retail will really be fronting only 4th street. Will there be retail fronting most of 5th Avenue, or is that walks up too? From the grade drop it looks like the restaurant will possibly have a mezzanine level? Is part of the WF side of the street on 4th actually walkups and not retail? Is retail only by the front doors of the tower?
2. When did the 3rd street side of the western WF block become 4 story office and not residential? But if it is. I do like the old Richardsonian look that was on the one large model that they had.
3. Ryan and Mortensen were there, but two of the biggest projects on the mall were absent. Both Opus and United did not participate and they wonder why that get have such a low appreciation level on this site. The Nicollet Block and Ritz blocks are the keystone to the north mall and we get this from them. Opus seem pretty sure as to what they are MAYBE doing. I'd give United a pass as they still don't seem to know what teams are working with them. But Opus is showing how lazy and uninvolved they are with the community with their no show.

[amiller92]

Was very much disappointed with the displays

Me too.

[bapster2006]

Last year was worse.

[Wedgeguy]

So do they do this once or twice a year. Seems like the last one I went to have much better diagrams and at least a few more displays. I thought that was this past spring?

[KML_1981]

Interesting piece in Minnpost:

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy ... ate-condos

[grant1simons2]

Cool tid bits in this article on the Dylan Mural:

http://finance-commerce.com/2015/09/beh ... nneapolis/

They planned a multimillion-dollar renovation for the nearly century-old building, which on a suite-by-suite basis will strip back to exposed brick and concrete and open up layouts to invite natural light.

Combined with the interior upgrades, Garrison expects the art to make the 15 Building, built in 1916, prime downtown real estate.

In addition, Garrison said several retailers are in talks to take over about 10,000 square feet of ground-level space, formerly home to a bar.

“It’s not about us, it’s about the neighborhood,” Garrison said. “We hope other people come renovate buildings and do the same thing we’re doing. It’s not competition, it actually creates community and scale, and it helps everyone.”

[seanrichardryan]

If only a fugly skywa didn't destroy the front. (Also, this building has some great original windows.

[Silophant]

Mod note: Moved the Gaviidae/BMO discussion to the Downtown Minneapolis Retail News thread, since there was some previous discussion on it there.

[grant1simons2]

An AIAS friend and I were walking around downtown yesterday and commenting on our visions for a lot of corners and buildings in the area. We passed by the Fur Mart, to which I mentioned how I really really hope they could give it a little love soon. He told me he has another friend who works for a firm, who shall not be named, working for someone to spruce up the building. I'll try to ask him a little more about it but I hope the deal doesn't fall through and we can see this beautiful building given life again.

[Wedgeguy]

An AIAS friend and I were walking around downtown yesterday and commenting on our visions for a lot of corners and buildings in the area. We passed by the Fur Mart, to which I mentioned how I really really hope they could give it a little love soon. He told me he has another friend who works for a firm, who shall not be named, working for someone to spruce up the building. I'll try to ask him a little more about it but I hope the deal doesn't fall through and we can see this beautiful building given life again.

I think that building would be an excellent residential building, with some retail on the ground floor and office as a buffer on the second floor. A roof top amenity area would be a great addition. All those southeast facing windows that over look downtown. I doubt that anything will ever get built in the tower's parking lot in front of it as that is city or county housing.

While many empty lots have gone away, there are still a lot of acres that can be filled in all over the DT core and the surrounding DT areas.

[twincitizen]

Zombie Pub Crawl talk moved here: https://forum.streets.mn/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3903

[twincitizen]

It would be really nice if one or more of y'all served on the DMNA board: http://www.thedmna.org/run-for-a-seat-o ... mna-board/

Help make downtown development projects better! Demand better street frontages! Meet your neighbors and rub elbows with downtown business leaders!

[beige_box]

Here's some new website-thing that's taking people on tours of "five downtown neighborhoods" (a.k.a. everything except Elliot Park (hmmm) + a very generous definition of 'downtown Northeast') to visit "residential communities" (a.k.a. new-ish high-end apartment developments): http://exploredtliving.com/

Posting this as evidence for my theory that these luxury and high-end "market-rate" developments aren't really doing much to meet the existing demand to live in these neighborhoods coming from people who actually already live in Minneapolis. When you have to hire a marketing team and lead people on tours to persuade them to live downtown... are they really part of the "demand" that's being "met"? What kind of people are they? For one, they apparently have a very poor sense of Minneapolis' urban geography.

[tab]

A friend of mine went on that tour. She's been working in Minneapolis for 30+ years, and knows the geography of most Minneapolis neighborhoods better than I do. Incidentally, her work involves supporting the development of affordable housing.

'What kind of people are they?' People who are tired of spending hours every week commuting in the freeway trenches. People looking to spend a little more time with their friends/family, and a little less money on gas. Is that so nefarious?

If the existence of a marketing campaign proves that a product isn't meeting a 'real' demand, then clearly there's no 'real' demand for food, beverages, cars, clothes, etc...

[beige_box]

OK, I guess I was wrong. The tour caters to suburbanites-who-don't-know-anything-about-downtown-and-might-not-live-there-otherwise AND housing-development-insiders*. My mistake.

For real though, this tour isn't just advertising a product (in this case, the apartments themselves). That would be one thing. Instead it's advertising an entire neighborhood and a lifestyle. We're supposed to believe that the new interest in urban living is a spontaneous, grassroots cultural shift, and that developers are simply building to meet that new demand. But marketing programs like this show us that both the demand and the supply are being generated by the same profit-motivated real estate interests. (At least, of course, for this level of upscale consumer. Plenty of working class folks have always desired to live near the services and conveniences of the central city. But that's not the demand that the developers are seeking to meet. Quite the opposite.)

(*Props to your friend for supporting affordable housing development, but you see the point I'm making, right?)