Stadium Parking Ramp Development Site - 25 stories / 294'

[Wedgeguy]

^^^ It's too bad Mortenson couldn't develop a hotel with Ryan and Magellan's residential project above. Probably way too complicated in many ways. We may see something similar to this proposal at Hennepin and 4th.

There will be plenty of Hotel rooms within an easy distance either walking or talking the LRT to get to the game. This holds true of the Well Fargo towers too. Alatus has that property where the Press Box is that they have talked about putting a Hotel on. That would also be connected to the skyway system like Latitude and be an easy walk to WF and the stadium. Better to fill the holes on Hennepin where we need to really fill in. Warehouse station is 3 stops away.

[CK76]

Wow, that's sad and uninspiring.

[David Greene]

I think this could be a cool addition elsewhere downtown though. (but with more glass)

And less purple.

[JordanWasaN]

I think this could be a cool addition elsewhere downtown though. (but with more glass)

And less purple.

Moar purple.
We could call it the Targaryen building.

(Also, I could picture this along Nicollet in Loring. Perhaps the NE corner of 15th and Nic.)

[nfschauer]

Are they digging in the parking lot now, or is that my eyes playing tricks on me? I was looking at the Aerial Vikings webcam and noticed.

[Wedgeguy]

Are they digging in the parking lot now, or is that my eyes playing tricks on me? I was looking at the Aerial Vikings webcam and noticed.

Not sure if they are digging for just testing. But there is a lot of construction material that is being stored at present on the site.

[HiawathaGuy]

Are they digging in the parking lot now, or is that my eyes playing tricks on me? I was looking at the Aerial Vikings webcam and noticed.

This angle shows the machinery that is stored on that block (and has been for months).


This (very bad) image does show something happening on the corner of 4th & Chicago, but not on the block.

[Wedgeguy]

That area at 3rd to 4th on Chicago is actually some utility work on one side of the street. But it is at least a block long.

[grant1simons2]

Not just utility work. Walked around it today, about half of the building is gone!

[HiawathaGuy]

Not just utility work. Walked around it today, about half of the building is gone!

Ah yes, I can see from the WF webcam they've started demo on the east side - so it's hard to see from the webcam.
Thanks for the update Grant!

[grant1simons2]

WP_20141006_008 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20141006_009 by grant.simons, on Flickr

[nfschauer]

I predict this will be gone by tomorrow afternoon.

[Tom H.]

I don't know why, but I always kind of liked that building. I think it was its complete ordinariness that stood out - that once upon a time, even the meanest of buildings had some TLC put into them.

RIP boring little warehouse building.

[grant1simons2]

There were buildings in this area they tore down long before this one, those were much nicer

[helsinki]

Sure it wasn't the Parthenon, but demolishing this old brick building and erecting a gigantic parking structure seems to me to be architectural vandalism of the worst sort.

Downtown East is drowning in parking, while historic brick buildings are its only irreplaceable asset. It's sad to see a city demolish its historical fabric in favor of a fundamentally anti-urban transportation mode. I thought we'd stopped doing that.

[mister.shoes]

I'm struck by how sad this demolition makes me as well. Sure seems like it would have been possible to reuse the façade, at the very least. Alas.

[mattaudio]

Agreed, this sort of makes me sad too. That building will likely have more street presence than the new ramp. They could have carved out the inner part of that building for a parking ramp along with the other 3/4 of the block, but retained the 4th and Park block faces and 3 story "podium"... some tuckpointing, new 2nd/3rd floor windows, and new storefront glass and we could have easily had 8-10 storefronts on these two block faces.

[GrowMPLS]

I like your appreciation of the past.......but isn't a 25-25 story tower going to build here? Isn't that what the city just approved? I assume that building code for an early 1900s low rise probably wouldn't fly to support a 25-35 story building. Trying to incorporate the two would probably be an engineering nightmare.

[MNdible]

Pragmatism. Tsk tsk.

[MplsSteve]

I agree that it is sad to see that building go away (though inevitable considering its location). Unfortunately there are a lot of nice old buildings that get demolished in this city and they disappear without any comment. Minneapolis has always been a knock-it-down town.