Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Downtown - North Loop - Mill District - Elliot Park - Loring Park
John
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby John » September 17th, 2015, 11:04 am

I love the SUV hanging out on the sidewalk.
And not a single pedestrian!

Archiapolis
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Archiapolis » September 17th, 2015, 12:39 pm

I love the SUV hanging out on the sidewalk.
And not a single pedestrian!
Just the way Stanton likes it!

HiawathaGuy
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby HiawathaGuy » September 17th, 2015, 12:47 pm

I love the SUV hanging out on the sidewalk.
And not a single pedestrian!
Just the way Stanton likes it!
Curses that damn Jim Stanton - taking dilapidated land and building condo towers with his own money! Ugh.

Wedgeguy
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Wedgeguy » September 17th, 2015, 12:59 pm

Hiawathaguy gets and AMEN from me. Is it better to have weeds growing than the population and the tax base?

PS. There is some "commercial space" at the street level. How can that be so bad??

MNdible
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby MNdible » September 17th, 2015, 1:25 pm

The problem with Stanton is that he's generally really close to doing great projects -- it would just take a little nudge in the right direction to make them outstanding. For example, realizing that attractive retail (er, commercial) space needs to have higher floor-to-floor clearances than what he's providing.

Archiapolis
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Archiapolis » September 17th, 2015, 1:43 pm

Hiawathaguy gets and AMEN from me. Is it better to have weeds growing than the population and the tax base?

PS. There is some "commercial space" at the street level. How can that be so bad??
Urbanmsp Achievement Unlocked:
Project>surface parking

Wedgeguy
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Wedgeguy » September 17th, 2015, 1:57 pm

The problem with Stanton is that he's generally really close to doing great projects -- it would just take a little nudge in the right direction to make them outstanding. For example, realizing that attractive retail (er, commercial) space needs to have higher floor-to-floor clearances than what he's providing.
Might be that he is not looking to lease Ann Taylor Lofts or Eddie Bauer, but more likely a dry cleaners or convenience store for the neighborhood. For sure he is not looking to lease a restaurant in the building. With all the support for parking and the tower there would not be enough back house space. I'd say his spaces are more service to the neighborhood oriented.

Tyler
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Tyler » September 17th, 2015, 6:28 pm

Might be that he is not looking to lease Ann Taylor Lofts or Eddie Bauer, but more likely a dry cleaners or convenience store for the neighborhood. For sure he is not looking to lease a restaurant in the building. With all the support for parking and the tower there would not be enough back house space. I'd say his spaces are more service to the neighborhood oriented.
His commercial spaces suck for any business.
Towns!

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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Silophant » September 17th, 2015, 6:31 pm

Yeah, I guess I don't know much about what the back rooms of dry cleaners look like, but I guarantee that convenience stores would rather have 12' shelves in the stockrooms than 8' shelves.
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grant1simons2
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby grant1simons2 » September 17th, 2015, 6:35 pm

He still attracts them. Bridgewater lofts for example.

Archiapolis
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Archiapolis » September 18th, 2015, 9:11 am

Hiawathaguy gets and AMEN from me. Is it better to have weeds growing than the population and the tax base?

PS. There is some "commercial space" at the street level. How can that be so bad??
@ Wedgeguy and Hiawathaguy:

As someone pointed out on another thread, the posters on this forum agree on probably 90% of urban issues so we are really discussing fringe aspects to urbanism. I think this is an accurate portrayal…

With that said, I’m so sick of the “It’s better than a surface parking lot!” response to criticism. That response is the epitome of useless.

Here is the urban hierarchy of possible/theoretical projects as established by this mindset:

Literally any building project

Surface parking lot
Jail?
Casino?
Mine
Abattoir
Crack House
Nuclear waste dump

This response contributes NOTHING to discussions about urbanism in Minneapolis - unless you choose to use the literal lowest threshold like you are.

Does ANYONE on this thread think that surface parking lots are good? <crickets chirping> Does ANYONE want to halt development in favor a surface parking lot? <crickets chirping> Does ANYONE think that density is bad? <crickets chirping> Increasing the tax base? <crickets chirping>

Okay, now that we’ve all accepted that almost any building project is better than a surface parking lot, can we talk about the gradient of possible/theoretical building projects that exist ABOVE the line in the conceptual diagram above? Can we discuss the quality of a building project using the metric that the gradient STARTS at the line above and ends at [insert your favorite project here]?

For f@cks sake, I’m not going to congratulate Stanton (or anyone else) for developing a site like they are doing the city some kind of favor.

Dilapidated land?! Are you f@cking kidding me?!

https://imgur.com/WdBzCpa

Who would EVER want to do development at this hell-hole?! Who would ever want to live here or have commercial space here?

Cheers to Stanton for being right about demand for condos and identifying good sites but this isn’t the “Metrodome” area circa 1995; the conditions in Downtown East and this city are light years away from where they were 20 years ago.

The fact is, there is value to the Portland site and SOMETHING would have been built there. Stanton’s project exists on the gradient I’ve described above. In my opinion, the project exists closer to the line above surface parking lot than it does to [insert greatest project ever here]. THAT is what is being evaluated and the only thing worth discussing.

PLEASE stop acting like we can’t be critical of building projects because they are “better than surface parking” because you are contributing nothing to the discussion of quality urbanism and architecture in Minneapolis.

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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby MNdible » September 18th, 2015, 9:22 am

I completely agree with the above, but the flip-side to this is the tendency of comparing any proposed project to the theoretically best possible project that people have in their mind, which of course is different for everybody, is financially unbuildable, and [hint] may be a 150 story supertall.

nickmgray
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby nickmgray » September 18th, 2015, 9:38 am

no one is saying that the project is perfect, but it's a lot better than many of the stick projects that have gone up over the past few years. I think one things we all get caught up on is the overall look of the tower. yes, no one here likes parking podiums, but what we have here is better than most parking podiums we've seen. Add in a corner shop and this project is ahead of the curve.

We can all envision a glorious building with underground parking and retail and restaurants wrapping around the front. but we live in the real world. If those projects were financially feasible, they would be built. Yes, if this building wasn't going up, something else would be build here eventually. But when? It's no like we have a shortage of surface parking lots and developers fighting over property rights to build the next incredible condo project. Development hack picked up, but it'll still be another two decades before we run out of viable development lots in downtown.

Tyler
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Tyler » September 18th, 2015, 10:26 am

We can all envision a glorious building with underground parking and retail and restaurants wrapping around the front. but we live in the real world. If those projects were financially feasible, they would be built.
Bridgewater is basically this (without the glorious part). What I strongly dislike about it are minor things. Tinted first level windows, weird retail entrances, poor signing, nothing active facing the park, etc. MNdible is 100% right -- he gets most of the way there and is building a quality product. The "nudges" in the right direction won't make the projects unfeasible.
Towns!

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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Didier » September 18th, 2015, 11:30 am

Bridgewater's first-floor units facing the park are jarringly close to the sidewalk and not private. You'd never be able to have the shades up and walk around naked.

Tyler
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Tyler » September 18th, 2015, 11:35 am

Well, a 10 foot setback wouldn't help that much. I think those units suck because they have the drawbacks (privacy, security) of a first floor unit without of the benefits (direct access, out door space).
Towns!

Wedgeguy
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Wedgeguy » October 7th, 2015, 6:23 pm

Walking by this afternoon I saw that they had the street level pretty much poured and they were starting the second level of the podium which is close to the Sexton. I can't believe how close that podium will be to the Sexton. Looked like less than 4 feet. Sales total so far is either 9 or 11 units from the sign I saw today.

aeisenberg
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby aeisenberg » October 8th, 2015, 10:46 am

Walking by this afternoon I saw that they had the street level pretty much poured and they were starting the second level of the podium which is close to the Sexton. I can't believe how close that podium will be to the Sexton. Looked like less than 4 feet. Sales total so far is either 9 or 11 units from the sign I saw today.
I propose we begin a KickStarter campaign to buy Wedgeguy a camera.
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Nathan
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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Nathan » October 8th, 2015, 12:08 pm

Wedgeguy, how do you feel about us just strapping a go pro camera to a hat that just live streams images of projects to the site? Lolololol

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Re: Portland Tower - 516 S. 8th St.

Postby Wedgeguy » October 8th, 2015, 12:10 pm

LOL then you have to teach me to download and post those on here!! I'm a tech dinosaur.


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