Southside - News & General Topics

[cooperrez]

Has anyone heard about what will be going into the old firehouse at 3010 Minnehaha Ave where Patrick's Cabaret is currently? An article from a few weeks back said the building was recently purchased. Patrick's Cabaret is still looking for a new home. Wondering what would be a good fit there. Maybe a parking ramp or a new Walgreens?

[Qhaberl]

Has anyone heard about what will be going into the old firehouse at 3010 Minnehaha Ave where Patrick's Cabaret is currently? An article from a few weeks back said the building was recently purchased. Patrick's Cabaret is still looking for a new home. Wondering what would be a good fit there. Maybe a parking ramp or a new Walgreens?

What would the ramp be used for?

[grant1simons2]

That was sarcasm

[cooperrez]

Sorry, I should have included an auto parts store on my list to drive my point home, no pun intended.

[Qhaberl]

I feel like using sarcasm on a fourm does not work well. Not judging, just saying.


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[FISHMANPET]

There's already an auto-parts store across the street!

And a parking ramp could be used as a park and ride for the Lake St Station (while that's a terrible idea for many reasons, there is some Met Council work being done somewhere for a park and ride for the station, so who knows).

[maxbaby]

Bruegger's Bagels.

[cooperrez]

I feel like using sarcasm on a fourm does not work well. Not judging, just saying.


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Sorry, thought the sarcasm was glaringly obvious. The spot where Patrick's sits is way too small for a parking ramp. Not to mention the vast parking lots in the area to the north of Lake St. Also, if the fire house isn't already designated as a historic property it should be. Lastly, it seems like Walgreens is included in every other development post in Minneapolis in some form or another and Lake St. is littered with auto parts stores already.

Bruegger's Bagels.

I wonder if the buyer has something in mind right now or if he/she is going to wait for the construction of Minnehaha to be completed by the end of this year. It's an interesting structure and important landmark for the area. I hope whatever goes in there is worthy of the space.

[Qhaberl]

There's already an auto-parts store across the street!

And a parking ramp could be used as a park and ride for the Lake St Station (while that's a terrible idea for many reasons, there is some Met Council work being done somewhere for a park and ride for the station, so who knows).

That was I was thinking. I agree, it would not be a good use for the land.

[cooperrez]

Here's a link the MNHS catalog with a picture of Fire Station Number 21 from 1936, current home of Patrick's Cabaret. Looks like the address has changed slightly.

http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/largeri ... hotographs

[mattaudio]

Variance requested to convert duplex into a triplex at 3219 Portland Ave, including a variance for minimum lot size. Staff recommendation is to deny both variances.
http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 179274.pdf

Maybe there's more to the story here? But this seems like it should be an easy, common-sense change to add a single unit at 32nd and Portland. This seems like a slam dunk to add an affordable dwelling unit to our rental stock, and the city's archaic zoning code is standing in the way.

[twincitizen]

There's probably not more to the story. This would be a pretty clear example of spot zoning.
If the City Council wants to do the rezoning, then that is their prerogative. But it is not staff's place to recommend approval of something that clearly goes against established zoning policy. City Council sets policy, staff obeys it. That's just the way it works.

That said, I wouldn't be against upzoning the whole block, or even the entire area to R3. But doing one property at a time is not the way rezonings should be handled.

(I'm going off message here, but bear with me...) Plus it says right in the staff report that the unit could be an ADU if it were owner-occupied. That should give the owner something to chew on. If they care so much about affordable housing (as noted in their letter), maybe they should sell the property to someone who actually wants to live there. It's owned by an LLC with an address in Wells Fargo Center.

[mattaudio]

You don't have to convince me that we should be upzoning broader parts of the city rather than a parcel here or there. But that's not really an option at this juncture for these property owners. When I suggest upzoning the city, sdho and others have told me "but that's what CUPs are for." This seems to be disproving the idea that CUPs or variances are a legitimate alternative to broader upzoning.

[EOst]

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis- ... 377204921/

I wasn't really sure where to put this, but this seems as good a place as any. Move as appropriate.

Steve Frenz, the guy behind the Apartment Shop, supposedly purchased all of slumlord Spiros Zorbalas's properties a couple years back, after Zorbalas had his rental licenses revoked. Turns out Frenz habitually committed blatant fraud, Zorbalas continued to own controlling stakes in the properties the whole time, and little real money was put into them.

I'm not surprised. Some of the Apt. Shop buildings in Stevens Square are visibly crumbling.

[talindsay]

There's probably not more to the story. This would be a pretty clear example of spot zoning.
If the City Council wants to do the rezoning, then that is their prerogative. But it is not staff's place to recommend approval of something that clearly goes against established zoning policy. City Council sets policy, staff obeys it. That's just the way it works.

That said, I wouldn't be against upzoning the whole block, or even the entire area to R3. But doing one property at a time is not the way rezonings should be handled.

(I'm going off message here, but bear with me...) Plus it says right in the staff report that the unit could be an ADU if it were owner-occupied. That should give the owner something to chew on. If they care so much about affordable housing (as noted in their letter), maybe they should sell the property to someone who actually wants to live there. It's owned by an LLC with an address in Wells Fargo Center.

Right, people misinterpret what the staff "recommendation" means, and I did too until I went through the process and my variance request got a staff recommendation of denial. I was angry at the staff and sure I needed to fight "the man", etc. I went to the board and got an approval and felt like I'd "won" over the staff's denial. I had actual hard feelings toward the staff person who'd recommended denial. And then, a month later, when it turned out a tiny mistake had been made in the variance paperwork that was potentially going to require us to go through it all again, that same staff person came to our rescue and successfully argued that it was a minor procedural detail that had nothing to do with what the board had voted on, so it didn't invalidate the variance. She saved us months of time and hundreds of dollars.

Why do I say that? Because it was only *after* my emotional investment in the decision passed that I finally looked into what had actually happened in the initial process. The staff are given specific, precise rules to apply. Their "recommendation" has nothing to do with their opinion, and they would be doing their job poorly if their recommendation had anything to do with their opinion. They apply a set of rules the Council has passed, and recommend based on whether a specific variance request can be recommended for summary approval based on those rules. In our case, a front addition that cuts into the front-yard setback can be recommended for approval only if it stays behind a certain distance from the street, or else falls at or behind the midpoint of the two properties on either side, or else the total part projecting forward of that line is both less than 50 sq ft and meets criteria of a "bay window". Since we didn't meet any of those criteria, we were recommended for denial. But the staff weren't invested in our variance being denied, and didn't harbor any ill will toward our project; they just applied the rules.

I go to the trouble to explain this because I realized in retrospect that I'd misattributed malice to a woman doing her job, and I suspect a lot of people do; I want to do what I can to help reduce that.

Side note, we showed up at the Board meeting with the plans, some hand-drawn sketches of an historical argument i was making to explain our choices, and photocopies of some historical materials. I was surprised to find that almost everybody else going in front of the board had lawyers in suits, with briefcases. Of course, we prevailed and not all of them did, so I'm not sure theirs was the better approach...

[winterfan]

Has anyone else been watching the apartment renovation at 3515 2nd Av? They've done a great job restoring a historic apartment building. The brick details are lovely and it looks like they are using nice materials. I noticed today that they are accepting applications, so the reno must be finishing up soon.

It was a condemned property before and so, so ugly:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/3515+ ... c7!6m1!1e1

Here's a photo of the reno, but they are actually further along now:

http://yellowtreehomes.com/listings/new ... -building/

[seanrichardryan]

I was really surprised how well that turned out. I thought it was a tear down for sure. Goes to show what can be done with these old 2 1/2 story walk-ups. Was there anything insude those wood corners or was it just some 1970s architect's idea of modern?

[mattaudio]

That's the one on the block that fronts what are essentially the 35th/36th exit ramps, right? I saw that building boarded up, and was not hopeful about its future. Good thing I was wrong.

[Sacrelicio]

Has anyone else been watching the apartment renovation at 3515 2nd Av? They've done a great job restoring a historic apartment building. The brick details are lovely and it looks like they are using nice materials. I noticed today that they are accepting applications, so the reno must be finishing up soon.

It was a condemned property before and so, so ugly:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/3515+ ... c7!6m1!1e1

Here's a photo of the reno, but they are actually further along now:

http://yellowtreehomes.com/listings/new ... -building/

Great to see investment along the freeway but I wish we could do something more about those walls. I'd hate to look at that.

[LakeCharles]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this project yet: http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/de ... g-project/, a senior housing project in the vacant area north of Sabathani Community Center.

Also a new 3-story building on the former Beek's Pizza site, with ground floor retail and 4 apartments above: http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/de ... struction/

Just found these in looking through the new development tracker that Southwest Journal has put together here: http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/de ... t-tracker/