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Metro Transit Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: May 19th, 2020, 11:03 am
by Cinzano71
Does anyone know what is going with this parcel of land? The land has been cleared and it appears that pile driving has started. Thank you

501–599 Napco Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55411
United States

Mod note: updated title

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: May 19th, 2020, 11:27 am
by MNdible
I'm guessing this is the Metro Transit bus barn expansion?

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: May 19th, 2020, 5:55 pm
by Cat349F
I hope you are distanced/shielded from that, we have to drive 3,051 piling there.

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: May 19th, 2020, 6:40 pm
by Anondson
I hope you are distanced/shielded from that, we have to drive 3,051 piling there.
Image

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: May 19th, 2020, 6:47 pm
by Cat349F
I'm guessing this is the Metro Transit bus barn expansion?

It is. Internally, we call it the Minneapolis Bus Garage.

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: May 20th, 2020, 9:30 am
by COLSLAW5
externally it is also the Minneapolis Bus Garage even though the joint venture created to build it is called Heywood Bus Garage constructors.

here is a link to a presentation about it
https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... arage.aspx

It will is being built with more electric bus infrastructure and with plans for a future 2 Mwh solar system with storage

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: May 20th, 2020, 10:10 am
by SurlyLHT
It will be great to see this space filled, hopefully transit lines and use increases as our population ages making this all the more needed. I also hope Metro Transit keeps building connections to the Northside to provide jobs. These middle class jobs are valuable to help prevent gentrification of the Northside.

Re: Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: May 20th, 2020, 4:00 pm
by twincitizen
This project is known at Metro Transit as "Heywood II". This has been in the works for a long time, and Metro Transit has been assembling the land back there for 15 years, according to that presentation linked above.

The only downside to this project, if there is one, is that it isn't being built to the capacity where it could actually replace the current Heywood bus garage and allow that land to be redeveloped someday (the office building and new police HQ would remain, of course). For this to have replaced the current Heywood garage, it would have needed multiple levels of bus parking, which obviously would have cost a whole lot more, and that just wasn't going to happen. We're extremely lucky this got funded as-is. Major kudos for Governor Dayton and the DFL minorities in the legislature (at the time) for somehow getting $50MM for this in the 2018 bonding bill. Not sure how the GOP let that one slip through in the final bill. Metro Transit sorely needs the capacity, especially with more aBRT routes being planned. And it has to be located near where a lot of routes are operated (downtown), to minimize the amount of service time (operator hours) spent on "dead-heading" (driving an empty bus) to the end of a route.

I assume Metro Transit will be keeping the public updated on the progress here: https://www.metrotransit.org/campus-construction

Other major bus garages in the region are in Brooklyn Center just north of 694, St. Paul near 35E/94, and at MSP airport (NE corner of 494/77). There's also a smaller/older garage at Nicollet & 31st, which isn't able to handle articulated buses. Nicollet Garage is one I'd like to see get relocated/redeveloped someday, or perhaps the garage aspect of it built underground with other stuff above. There's definitely an opportunity for better land use in that immediate area with Metro Transit, MPD, and USPS all operating large tax-exempt government facilities with blocks of each other. At minimum, it would be nice to see some better coordination between those agencies (e.g. shared parking facility, etc.)

Re: Metro Transit Heywood II Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: May 21st, 2020, 11:34 am
by MNdible
Minor point, maybe, but I believe this lot was being used for snow storage by the city (all of the snow that was removed from downtown and surrounding areas). So they'll need to find a replacement location for this function.

Re: Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: May 21st, 2020, 1:14 pm
by HKM
Nicollet Garage is one I'd like to see get relocated/redeveloped someday, or perhaps the garage aspect of it built underground with other stuff above. There's definitely an opportunity for better land use in that immediate area with Metro Transit, MPD, and USPS all operating large tax-exempt government facilities with blocks of each other. At minimum, it would be nice to see some better coordination between those agencies (e.g. shared parking facility, etc.)
I know this isn't the thread for it but glad to know I'm not the only one who is annoyed with the unrealized potential with the Nicollet Garage and surrounding area. In addition to the tax-exempt facilities you mentioned, I would also throw in the strip mall on the SE corner of Lake & Nicollet, the retail on the southside of Lake between 1st and Stevens, and the Wells Fargo branch (who just redeveloped a branch to be part of a new building at 8th & Portland) on the NW corner of 31st & Nicollet, and obviously the Kmart site forming an incredibly large scale redevelopment opportunity with the B Line & Orange Line intersecting (and nearby Greenway) and especially with the Orange Line giving the area a very quick connection with downtown.

Re: Metro Transit Heywood II Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: July 15th, 2020, 11:39 am
by Cinzano71
If anyone’s interested in checking it out it appears that the excavation of this site has uncovered the Bassett Creek tunnel. Not sure when it last saw the light of day. It’s too bad it can’t be restored and elevated to ground level where it could pass through the the North Loop neighborhood!

Re: Metro Transit Heywood II Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: July 16th, 2020, 2:59 pm
by COLSLAW5
The tunnel is pretty cool they actually used whole trees bark and all as the piles to support the tunnel, they should be exposing the rest of the tunnel over the next month . The site is also been full of all sorts of glass jars going back to the late 1800s early 1900s which is pretty cool. Also the garage name is actually just "Minneapolis Bus Garage" at least for now but they really didn't want people calling it Heywood II for some reason.

Re: Metro Transit Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: July 17th, 2020, 8:46 am
by SurlyLHT
Anyone at least documenting the current state of the tunnel and etc? The creek is pretty scenic as it runs through Theo Wirth. You would have to stick it in a little valley or something though if it was uncovered? Would it ever make sense to uncover it and give a some wetlands to add stormwater capacity at a lower cost than other solutions? But then were would we put wetlands in Mpls?

Re: Metro Transit Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: July 17th, 2020, 10:13 am
by MNdible
I've seen a planning document that the city commissioned back in the 1970's proposing daylighting much of the creek. Not sure if this pre-dated the I-94 construction that diverted most of the waterflow to the new tunnel?

Re: Metro Transit Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: July 20th, 2020, 8:39 am
by EOst
I've seen a planning document that the city commissioned back in the 1970's proposing daylighting much of the creek. Not sure if this pre-dated the I-94 construction that diverted most of the waterflow to the new tunnel?
Perhaps this one? https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a133795.pdf

Re: Metro Transit Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: July 20th, 2020, 9:09 am
by MNdible
No, it was much less engineering focused and more planning/design based. Had some fantastic imagery, as I recall.

As near as I can figure, it was the plan by the Hodne/Stageberg Partners that is referenced here. My googling skills have hit a dead end though -- does the Planning Department have any kind of a searchable database of past plans?

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: August 6th, 2020, 9:41 am
by ztr421
I hope you are distanced/shielded from that, we have to drive 3,051 piling there.
Do you happen to have an update on which pile they're on? It's starting to drive me craaayyzee! lol

Re: Metro Transit Minneapolis Bus Garage - North Loop

Posted: August 6th, 2020, 7:43 pm
by Cat349F
I’ll ask tomorrow and tell them to step it up.

Re: Unknown Development North Loop

Posted: August 7th, 2020, 8:47 am
by Cat349F
I hope you are distanced/shielded from that, we have to drive 3,051 piling there.
Do you happen to have an update on which pile they're on? It's starting to drive me craaayyzee! lol
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