Grand & Finn Apartments - (2124 Grand Avenue)

[twincitizen]

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... t-size-new

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... and-avenue

2 stories this week saying exactly the same thing from PiPress. Sounds like it's going to happen. Email your City Councilperson if you live in St. Paul and oppose this undue restriction on private property rights. They are changing zoning to specifically prohibit one development. The zoning code was fine before, but now that someone wants to build something they want to downzone? That hardly seems right.

[David Greene]

Email your City Councilperson if you live in St. Paul and oppose this undue restriction on private property rights.

I fully support what you're trying to do but this isn't the best way to sell it to St. Paul DFLers. "Private property rights" is code language for "unbridled capitalism" at the capitol. That's not going to sit well with the Mayor, City Council or residents.

Maybe reframing the issue as increasing tax base, population and environmental sustainability would be more effective.

[mattaudio]

The fact that unbridled capitalism solves those problems is just a coincidence?

[David Greene]

First, unbridled capitalism has proven to cause many more problems than it solves.

Second, I'm not talking about changing ideology. I'm talking about selling something to a group that already has a certain ideology we need to appeal to. Know your audience and all that.

[mattaudio]

Yeah, I guess I was just trolling a little

[cowboyjones]

Related to five story buildings on Grand Ave:
http://finance-commerce.com/2013/06/st- ... t-heights/

Someone with a subscription want to tell us if this is something more than St. Paulites hating density?

Probably St. Paulites hating tommies as well.

[MNdible]

Probably St. Paulites hating tommies as well.

Well, can't blame them for that...

[Nick]

The development in Minneapolis is boring, they say...


IMG_3838 by UrbanMSP, on Flickr


IMG_3839 by UrbanMSP, on Flickr

[mattaudio]

Is that for real? Too cheap for an architect? Does Menards have materials lists for apartment buildings like they do pole barns?

[seanrichardryan]

ooof.

[Nick]

Sorta makes me think of Neapolitan Ice Cream.

[bptenor]

Wow that's horrid. Hopefully a renovation will be in store 3 years down the road...

[mattaudio]

Now it totally makes sense why St. Paul wanted to limit height on Grand...
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... and-avenue
So you couldn't see something like this from further away.

[stp1980]

Maybe the landscaping will be really really good?

[Nathan]

And on Grand. SO BAD. Even a building that shape could have been appointed well to look decent. It's a case of being able to make it look OK on paper, and be cheap in reality

Literally makes my stomach turn.

[seanrichardryan]

It's the tiny windows. The scale is alllll wrong.

[tabletop]

Yeah, leave it up to the developers to prove the neighborhood groups right! It would've worked real well if the building had been broken up into the three separate buildings that seem to have been blindly smashed together: the two story brown brick building, the multi colored three story building and the skinny long five story building. That would've made for a nice diverse street scape that would ADD to the neighborhood aesthetics instead of detract. When will they get that density doesn't just mean building the biggest friggin thing on a block and that you can still get rich building three to four story's? Although, not AS rich I suppose...

[Snelbian]

Ugly building. But just to be clear, especially since a lot of people here don't get to St. Paul very often - the density debate is a small fraction of the issue. In fact, it's not much more than a red herring. Same with height and size. The neighbors are opposed to student housing. They just tend to frame it in whatever rationale they think will play well at any particular time. You should here some of these residents at board meetings. You'd think students were literal Vandals.

[Nick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals?

[Snelbian]

Yep. To be fair, some of the Tommies aren't themselves to blame. They were just raised poorly and spoiled by Mr. and Mrs. Gundrick.