urbanMSP

Mayo Clinic will open a sports medicine facility, joining the Minnesota Wolves and Lynx, in major overhaul of troubled Minneapolis retail complex.

http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 51981.html

This is pretty exciting. It finally buries the Block E name that has been associated with failure for decades (minus the couple years when the new iteration was successful). It also gives the Mayo Clinic brand a visible presence in the Twin Cities that, up to this point, has been surprisingly non-existent. This and the Target Center renovation are going to leave this area looking completely transformed in a few years.

Note: The old Block E thread has been moved to the Nostalgia section

This and the Target Center renovation are going to leave this area looking completely transformed in a few years.

Not to mention the pending renovation of the exterior base of City Center!

The article says the renovations should be complete by the end of the year. Doesn't that seem fast?

Very fast! If true, they must be starting extremely soon.

Pretty good use of the space...much better than a practice facility alone!

Earlier reports were that Kieran's, Jimmy Johns and the Shout House would all stay. I wonder if this is still the case. I also look forward to a new tenant in the old Hard Rock space. I am sure this will be 100% full ASAP. Great news!!

The rendering in the Strib article shows the Kieran's sign still in place on that corner. I couldn't imagine them kicking out the best reason to go there.

There will be minimal change to the concrete shell of the exterior, so mostly it's removing/ replacing the façade which won't take as long. I think the demo work to the interior has already begun. This is an exciting project with a great design. In addition to the Mayo and practice facility, there will be added retail on the street level, and maybe more office space.

The Business Journal did a better job reporting, IMO.
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... ock-e.html

The Star Tribune says it's only a 20,000 sq. ft. clinic, however, the Business Journal says 85,000. That's quite a big difference.

..."The project includes a 85,000-square-foot Mayo Clinic sports medicine center with services to evaluate and treat sports injuries and to provide sports-performance enhancement services. Mayo will also become the official medical provider for the Wolves and Lynx starting this summer. (It'll be similar to a sports medicine center at Mayo’s Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center in Rochester.)

The developers, who aren't seeking any public subsidies for the project, are trying to make the much-maligned Block E complex more pedestrian friendly and easier to navigate.

They've hired real estate broker Mike Shields of CBRE Chicago to attract "out-of-town marquee restaurants that complement the neighborhood" and existing tenants Kieran’s Irish Pub, The Shout House Dueling Pianos, Starbucks, and Jimmy John’s.
RSP Architects has been retained to design the building’s exterior and interior core renovation, expected to be completed early 2015. Jones Lang LaSalle brokers Jon Dahl and Brent Robertson are marketing additional office space in the complex."

Mass confusion! Mayo's news release states 20k ft^2.

My guess is that it's 20K SF. 85K SF would be quite an extensive amount of office space, and I believe that the entirety of Block E had only between 80K and 85K SF of available space. 20K SF is akin to about two IDS floors, FWIW.

Holy crap, I just got the pun on the drive home. Whoever branded this was either a genius or a moron.

Block E = MC Square.

Fly Through...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQN-kVJ ... r_embedded

Here is a break down of the square footage

Mayo Clinic Square will house the roughly 20,000-square-foot sports medicine center, about 52,000 square feet for the Timberwolves and Lynx basketball operations, and another 23,000 square feet for the teams’ office space on its third and fourth floors.

Some other nuggets...
Jaffe said Tuesday that the building’s second floor will be used primarily as office space for other tenants and that Camelot is seeking “signature restaurants” for the ground floor.

“Our goal is to animate the street and make it more pedestrian-friendly than it is today,” Jaffe

Nearly 120,000 square feet of space on the building’s first and second floors is still available. Jon Dahl and Brent Robertson of Jones Lang LaSalle are handling office leasing and CBRE Group’s Chicago office will work on attracting the restaurants.

Preliminary plans for the building show two practice basketball courts taking up the building’s third floor where AMC’s 15-screen movie multiplex once operated. The courts are surrounded by locker rooms, offices, meeting spaces and other team-related uses.

Existing retail tenants Kieran’s Irish Pub, The Shout House Dueling Pianos, Jimmy John’s and Starbuck’s Coffee plan to remain.

I wonder if there will be an open face on which to put some Mayo signage. Help spread the word.

Holy crap, I just got the pun on the drive home. Whoever branded this was either a genius or a moron.

Block E = MC Square.

I saw someone posted this on Facebook. I wondered if someone would bring it over here.

Holy crap, I just got the pun on the drive home. Whoever branded this was either a genius or a moron.

Block E = MC Square.

Genius!

Additional interior renderings can be seen here...
http://photos.twincities.com/2014/02/04 ... eapolis/#3

'Mayo Clinic Square' has a very 1970s ring to it.

Hopefully this will mean that the Graves will update the lower façade of their 601 Hotel as well.

Has there been any illustrations of the 1st Ave and 7th street corner or full sides out there yet? Curious as to how they rework the strange octagon shape that was the Hard Rock Café. They need to work to green up that corner as well as they did the Kieran's area for outdoor seating.

'Mayo Clinic Square' has a very 1970s ring to it.

I think anything with "square'" in it has a 70's ring. The 1970's was a very square decade.