urbanMSP

I'm curious to see more renderings from different angles.

I'm also curious how the new 30 story Ryan tower across from the library looks from that Target Field vantage point. That and it'll be interesting to see how the 200 Central and Eleven condo towers add to this view. Judging by my rough Google 3D skills, I think they'll pop up around these spots from that view.

A floor or two may be added depending on market conditions, making the building 34 or 35 stories

It just looks squat. The main portion needs to be twice as tall as the upper portion to make it look better. This will be good for this area, but sure is disappointing

This would be "iconic" in my home town of Albuquerque New Mexico.

Anyone know how common/uncommon it is for a single tower to have a combination of hotel, office and condo? Certainly there are a lot of buildings with hotel and condos, but this just seems like they're throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks?

The base and the crown look pretty good. However, the tower should really be about 10 stories taller to improve the proportions, and give the north end of Nicollet Mall a stronger place mark. The project has definitely swayed from the original intent of the RFP's

The ground floor actually looks pretty good to me, although it's hard to make out much room for retail. But the form of the tower is especially disappointing, and the facade reads pretty flat in these renderings (although the problem on that front may simply be a poor quality rendering). Uninspired work from ESG.

Btw, on the topic of the renderings, are you telling me that nobody from ESG or United Properties was able to walk a few blocks over to Target Field, literally owned by the developer, and get an actual photo instead of using a Google 3D map image? That's really embarrassing.

I take it back, ESG didn't do this round. I'm not sure why, but apparently UP hired Atlanta based Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart Inc. Imagine going all the way to Atlanta for an architect and ending up with an even worse design than you had before, and renderings at the level you'd expect from a first year architecture student intern.

I still can't get over the how embarrassing it should be that these renderings were shared. They STILL can't get the placement of Opus' 365 tower right, and the second rendering coming from Google Maps is such a no-no.

Both 365 Nicollet and Wells Fargo seem to have been squashed down. What's the point of putting background buildings in your image if you're not going to make them look right?

They updated the renderings on the site. By that I mean they removed all the old ones and left two limited ones which must be current. They're higher quality than the ones in the tweet. However, given they didn't release these with the RBC announcement leaves question marks.

https://www.uproperties.com/properties/gateway/

Random thought: What if a pedestrian bridge of some sort was built into this project? Perhaps one that was wider with landscaping, or integrated well into both sides of the street with the goal to maintain a parkesque feel across Washington Ave to Gateway Park and eventually a redone Post Office in the distant future? You could construct it as a curve with the apex toward Nicollet and end near the corner of Washington and Hennepin. It'll be great to have a functional sculpture with landscaping on it. We have the Hixon bridge near the Walker and the Sabo Bridge, why not one here? I'm tempted to see if I have any Sketchup skills.

Actually I really like that idea.

great. moar skyways

Not a skyway, it'll link the plaza to Gateway Park.

Quite a bit cheaper to just make the city streets safer to cross.

But it would be i c o n i c

I know nobody on here likes the Nic-Central streetcar (besides me -- I think it's not the perfect project, but has lots of benefits for locals but especially for downtown visitors). But if you all have your way and the project gets quashed, does it still make sense to have aBRT follow the same route through this site?

A bus? That's not very romantic MNdible

I know nobody on here likes the Nic-Central streetcar (besides me -- I think it's not the perfect project, but has lots of benefits for locals but especially for downtown visitors). But if you all have your way and the project gets quashed, does it still make sense to have aBRT follow the same route through this site?

I would prefer if its aBRT, that we have a separate Nicollet and Central routes. I actually like the streetcar and hope it gets built. It is more than just a downtown circulator(like many projects across the country). It actually connects very dense neighborhoods in South to downtown and NE! It could also be eventually extended past Lake St, but currently the ridership does not justify it.

I'm personally in favor of the streetcar. I think despite the mode's disadvantages over light rail, not having a high capacity permanent investment in transit that runs north/south through the densest parts of the city is a mistake. Especially if the justification for downgrading it to aBRT is "we don't need that economic development in Northeast anymore".

Sorry, I did not intend to derail (cough) the conversation here into the merits of the streetcar.

So, just for a second, imagine that the decision has been made and it's definitely aBRT. Do you still send it on the diagonal through this site, or just have it make the jog on Washington?