1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

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RailBaronYarr
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby RailBaronYarr » March 9th, 2017, 8:04 pm

Dude, I was only defending a project you and I probably both support. You're the one who seems eager to derail the thread just because you didn't like my rationale. Anyway, I don't see why it's controversial to point out that the market puts up far bigger barriers to building affordable housing at more valuable locations.
I'm gonna call BS on this. https://streets.mn/2016/10/13/dense-dev ... riors-too/ (seriously please read that and many other pieces by actual market-oriented urbanists who think critically about the political, regulatory, cost, and industry structures at play yet still advocate for market-infill in places that aren't polluted arterials or in freeway armpits - you might find a shred of morality in some of us).

I've found planners (and of course Concerned Residents) are the ones who believe that dense development belongs on busy/polluted streets. There are scores and scores of apartment buildings put up in the 1910s-40s and again in the 50s-70s all in neighborhood interiors, and they are what led to widespread downzoning. We made it so more local, smaller builders (the Landers and Turkey Guys of the world) barely exist anymore. I find the argument that low-income renters or owners living in filtered down units are more prone to live in lower quality/lower efficiency/higher rate of needed repairs/etc compelling. We need high quality new housing for low income people and high quality old housing for low income people (we need stronger enforcement of codes already on the books with some sort of way to make sure owners can afford it), but there is literally no program on the planet where rich and old alike don't live in old units across the city.

[mods move this to small-scale infill or wherever, asap]

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby beige_box » March 9th, 2017, 8:58 pm

actual market-oriented urbanists who think critically about the political, regulatory, cost, and industry structures at play yet still advocate for market-infill in places that aren't polluted arterials or in freeway armpits - you might find a shred of morality in some of us
I recognize that market urbanists are not typically amoral Randian anarcho-capitalists or whatever. But without challenging very deeply held tenets of the status quo land use regime, market forces will always have the primary directive when it comes to housing, and it will always tend towards exclusion and displacement--even if there are a handful of "inclusionary" token exceptions to the rule for politicians to point to.

Again, I don't think you disagree with me that the market puts up barriers to equitable development. You seem mostly to be upset that I'm acknowledging this openly. If we're really on the same page in terms of equity, what harm is there in recognizing that the market works against progress?

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FISHMANPET
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby FISHMANPET » March 9th, 2017, 9:40 pm

The "status quo land us regime" is that neighbors have unilateral power to prevent housing from being built near them, which is about as far from "market forces" as I can imagine. The primary directive in housing prices is market forces, but the primary directive in housing construction is what you can do to appease cranky neighbors.

Our current regime of making housing difficult to build means we're very good at building expensive luxury housing, as well as very low income housing, but we're very bad at building middle income housing. There's no reason the market can't provide them housing if allowed to, but instead we've implemented regulations that make housing more expensive so that we don't upset existing residents. I'm not sure I want those people seizing the means of production if we don't simultaneously take away their power to directly impact what happens on every lot on their block that they don't own.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby FISHMANPET » March 9th, 2017, 9:51 pm

I guess to make this relevant to this thread, you're right that low income housing is concentrated in polluted corridors. A lot of it less expensive because of the negative impact of that pollution. In a sense the market has "worked" but you're absolutely right that it's not equitable.

Yet ask any politician or most citizens where they think higher density housing (the kind that's more likely to be affordable, as nearly all affordable projects are large multi-family buildings) they're going to say it belongs on these polluted corridors. They may not think it belongs adjacent to an actual freeway, but they'll absolutely support it on our busy arterials like Hennepin and Lyndale and Nicolet, and keep it off of our quiet interior streets where there's less pollution from traffic. And we can hardly call that a free market outcome, when the zoning code forces these multi-family projects onto these polluted corridors.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby amiller92 » March 10th, 2017, 10:56 am

Why can't the newest & shiniest housing also be the cheapest!?


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MNdible
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby MNdible » March 10th, 2017, 11:04 am

Not to get terribly off track here, but my suspicion (without doing a peer reviewed study) is that most of the research regarding health effects of living near freeways, etc. is probably pretty obsolete, since it's picking up data points from when auto exhaust was a much nastier stew than it is today. Even if we assume that lead gasoline is no longer cooked into the numbers, the recent improvements to diesel standards and particulates are going to make a big difference.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby beige_box » March 10th, 2017, 11:28 am

[...] we've implemented regulations that make housing more expensive so that we don't upset existing residents. I'm not sure I want those people seizing the means of production if we don't simultaneously take away their power to directly impact what happens on every lot on their block that they don't own.
I agree with this. But let's not mistake these cabals of mostly white homeowners for the revolutionary working class. These folks are engaging in petit-bourgeois opportunism when they take the "density everywhere except here" stance, which is basically just aggressive, toxic land speculation at the expense of the public's right to the city. NIMBYs already possess the means of production, and the problem is that they are aggressively denying public access to them.
They may not think it belongs adjacent to an actual freeway, but they'll absolutely support it on our busy arterials like Hennepin and Lyndale and Nicolet, and keep it off of our quiet interior streets where there's less pollution from traffic. And we can hardly call that a free market outcome, when the zoning code forces these multi-family projects onto these polluted corridors.
Yes and no. In the case of affordable housing being built on busy commercial corridors, yes, this runs contrary to the market--and we should qualify these as success stories. See, for example, the pushback Hamline Station received for the high costs associated with the land value (http://www.twincities.com/2015/06/06/th ... in-cities/), and the Myron Orfield -school of complaints about how much "tax base" is lost vis-a-vis market-rate development at those more accessible locations.

Yes, those are also polluted and noisy locations, but the reality is those concerns, for most people, are trumped by accessibility. So, in a world with no NIMBYs and no zoning, the market would indeed probably cluster affordable housing into the (once-)"quiet interior streets," and their accessibility would suffer as a result. That's not a great outcome either. (See: North Minneapolis)

Again, at this stage of the housing crisis, we can't afford to be against this development just because it's next to a freeway. But neither can we be uncritical of an upzoned world where the market also forces affordable housing into less-accessible locations that NIMBYs happen to fetishize. No matter how you spin it--and even if you aren't proposing the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism--it has to be acknowledged that the market is part of the equitable development problem, not the solution.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby LakeCharles » March 10th, 2017, 12:46 pm

Ill just preface this by noting that I'm out of my depth here. But how does the example of Hamline Station count as a win because it's accessible, and yet this doesn't? This is on the 11,17 and 18 lines, and 2 blocks from the 2. That means it is on 3 of the 12 high frequency routes, plus a non-high frequency line to boot. Those give one-seat ride access to the U of M, uptown, northeast, south Minneapolis and St. Louis Park. It is also within a half-mile of the downtown core and all the associated jobs there. This is a very very accessible location.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby beige_box » March 10th, 2017, 12:51 pm

Ill just preface this by noting that I'm out of my depth here. But how does the example of Hamline Station count as a win because it's accessible, and yet this doesn't? This is on the 11,17 and 18 lines, and 2 blocks from the 2. That means it is on 3 of the 12 high frequency routes, plus a non-high frequency line to boot. Those give one-seat ride access to the U of M, uptown, northeast, south Minneapolis and St. Louis Park. It is also within a half-mile of the downtown core and all the associated jobs there. This is a very very accessible location.
It is accessible; additionally, it's also right above I-94. The latter is probably why there are relatively fewer barriers to this being affordable units. I'm not arguing against this project; quite the contrary. Who knows--maybe Myron Orfield will make a stink just like with Hamline Station.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby Chef » March 14th, 2017, 7:05 pm

Filling in vacant lots is one thing. Tearing down century old urban fabric is another. We don't have much of that left, especially commercial. This project should be opposed. I don't want Minneapolis to become even more soulless.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby min-chi-cbus » March 15th, 2017, 8:57 am

It'd be awesome if they could incorporate the old corner structure. Is that even plausible (physically, as well as financially)?

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby amiller92 » March 15th, 2017, 2:27 pm

That would be great, but if I have to choose, I'd take the new housing.


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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby bubzki2 » March 17th, 2017, 9:37 am


amiller92
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby amiller92 » March 17th, 2017, 2:41 pm

Filling in vacant lots is one thing. Tearing down century old urban fabric is another. We don't have much of that left, especially commercial. This project should be opposed. I don't want Minneapolis to become even more soulless.
I'd like to keep the grocery building on the corner if possible, and think that every time I go by.

But it's simply untrue that we don't have many century old commercial buildings left. They are all over the city.




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helsinki
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby helsinki » March 19th, 2017, 2:41 pm

But it's simply untrue that we don't have many century old commercial buildings left. They are all over the city.
Really? Sure, there are a few sprinkled around old streetcar nodes and somewhat substantial concentrations in the oldest parts of the city, but in general there aren't that many. I got back from Philadelphia yesterday and was blown away by the number and variety of old buildings that remain from many different time periods. It is a truly fine-grained urban fabric. Here, by contrast, the tendency towards parcel agglomeration and mega-projects has made for a sort of anywheresville streetscape, particularly downtown. This project continues that trend.

amiller92
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby amiller92 » March 20th, 2017, 9:41 am

Really? Sure, there are a few sprinkled around old streetcar nodes and somewhat substantial concentrations in the oldest parts of the city, but in general there aren't that many.
There aren't many downtown, but as you say, pick any street that used to carry a street car and you'll find them nearly every major intersection and some minor ones.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby bapster2006 » April 6th, 2017, 4:11 pm

See page 2 for the list of updates to the project:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 196997.pdf

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Nathan
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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby Nathan » April 6th, 2017, 7:46 pm

The live work units totally sell me. I'm all for it. They look really nice along Nicollet.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby mattaudio » April 7th, 2017, 8:14 am

Yep, this seems fine now. I like it.

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Re: 1500 Nicollet Avenue - Dominium Development - 6 stories / 184 units

Postby Silophant » April 7th, 2017, 8:16 am

I still wish the connection between the two buildings wasn't full height, but whatever. Great project.
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