Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

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Didier
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Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Didier » June 27th, 2016, 11:39 am

The Weyerhaueser property has sold.

"The buyer, Dominium, plans to raze the structures on the site and construct a multi-phase housing project with approximately 600 rental units over the next several years."

http://www.cushwakenm.com/aboutus/Pages/20160627.aspx

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Re: Prospect Park - General Topics

Postby Anondson » June 27th, 2016, 12:09 pm

That's a big site. Hope some public grid is put through.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby twincitizen » June 28th, 2016, 10:27 am

Plymouth-based Dominium has closed on a $5.25 million cash deal to buy the recently closed Weyerhaeuser Co. distribution center at 700 Emerald St. SE in St. Paul, with plans to redevelop the 12.81-acre site into multiple buildings with about 600 affordable apartments.
The site houses about a half-dozen structures, including an 83,651-square-foot Class C warehouse, built in 1967. All will be demolished. The [site] lies west of Highway 280, north of Interstate 94, and a half-mile walk from the Westgate Station on the Green Line light rail route.
“We’re in the early stages of our design process,” Route said. “At this point we’re still working on demolition costs.”
The developer hopes to break ground on the first phase of the project within a year to 18 months.
http://finance-commerce.com/2016/06/dom ... reen-line/

On a site that big, with that many units, I really hope they aren't planning it to be 100% subsidized/affordable. Something of that scale really needs to be mixed-income. When the plans are for there to be multiple separate buildings and separate phases, I see no reason you wouldn't plan for some affordable and some market rate. The area can certainly support market rate rents (see condos & apartments to the north)

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby acs » June 28th, 2016, 10:30 am

And the green line ghetto rolls on.

mattaudio
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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby mattaudio » June 28th, 2016, 10:43 am

So, any suggestions for adaptive reuse of the Wabash Ave railroad bridge over MN-280? Or would that simply be torn down?

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby twincitizen » June 28th, 2016, 10:59 am

Have to imagine the railroad bridge stays as an off-street bike-ped path, which could be extended westward to Emerald St, along the southern property line. I don't know how far east that path could be extended (along Wabash), given all the truck traffic, etc. At least over to Raymond would be nice.

EDIT: Worth noting that the property does not extend all the way down to 94. The Public Storage and Johnstone Supply buildings are likely to remain in place (and they should, as they provide a buffer from highway noise). The Weyerhaueser property's eastern border is the curving rain line itself, and doesn't actually reach the bridge over 280 or anywhere near it. Their ability to influence what happens might be fairly minimal. Sunrise Bank, which bought the property to the east, will have more direct control over what happens in the eastern side of this super-super-block.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Qhaberl » June 28th, 2016, 11:18 am

I agree with @twincitizen. From what the finance and commerce article says, it looks like they will all be affordable. That would be a mistake with disastrous consequences. Hopefully each of the buildings has ground floor retail. Hopefully it's not another Garden City – city beautiful project.


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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby seanrichardryan » June 28th, 2016, 11:24 am

Disastrous consequences? Green Line Ghetto?
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

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Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Anondson » June 28th, 2016, 11:42 am

What is their benchmark for 'affordable', it's usually something like 60% of area median income. What is their defining area?

The P.L.A.C.E. proposal in SLP on Wooddale were reserving 200 units as "affordable", the meetings kept having NIMBYs bringing up Sabrini Green, welfare transients, section 8... etc. I'm not kidding. This 5th meeting developer started saying "200 units targeted for families earning around $55,000 per year", and no one objected AT ALL. $55,000 is 60% of the family median income for SLP. But said out as a number like that, objections disappeared.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby mattaudio » June 28th, 2016, 11:46 am

disastrous consequences
Didn't Dominion build the apartments literally across Franklin from this site? They are quite the "disaster."
https://goo.gl/maps/xYM5PaAgHGJ2

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Didier » June 28th, 2016, 11:51 am

Something of that scale really needs to be mixed-income. When the plans are for there to be multiple separate buildings and separate phases, I see no reason you wouldn't plan for some affordable and some market rate. The area can certainly support market rate rents (see condos & apartments to the north)
The original press release referenced 808 Berry, which is right next to this. My understanding is that both Berry and the new building going up at 2700 University are both fairly expensive apartments but have a certain percentage of affordable units. That would seem to be an appropriate model here.

I'm also curious about the scale. Based on Google Maps you could easily fit two 808 Berry complexes here, which would be massive. A mix of apartments along Franklin and townhouses farther south would be ideal.

The Westgate Station Area Plan recommends a more balanced approach — extending the street grid, adding a park, and adding mid-rise and mixed-use residential buildings. Although it's still pretty early to really know what Dominium is thinking.

Here are some highlights from the Station Area Plan:
New residential development in Westgate should build on the successes of the existing new mid-rise development along Berry to reinforce the Curfew Street residential neighborhood.

A mixed-use urban village here will provide a transition from the employment uses to the east, help to integrate the existing Curfew Street residential uses back into the surrounding fabric and establish a residential population capable of supporting more diverse retail offerings. New development should be comprised of attractive mid-rise buildings oriented around private, interior courtyard spaces. It should be structured around the existing street grid and anchored in the southeast by a large, flexible open space. This orientation of buildings and open spaces may generally be described as replicating the development pattern of the adjacent Emerald Gardens.
and
Create a mid-rise urban neighborhood.
a) New development should line streets and open spaces and establish a height of 4 to 6 residential stories.
b) Building heights could increase adjacent to the new park space at the foot of Curfew and Berry Streets, but should transition down to 4 stories along Emerald and Curfew Streets to preserve the existing scale and character of the street.
Complete the Curfew Street neighborhood.
c) New town home developments should act as a lower intensity transition between the existing Curfew Street single family homes and the taller mid rise development on Emerald Street. These should generally be of 3-4 stories in height.
https://www.stpaul.gov/DocumentCenter/G ... 20LowQ.PDF

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby uk4l » June 28th, 2016, 12:59 pm

The Finance & Commerce article has been revised, it looks like the project will include 200 - 300 market rate units.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby UrsusUrbanicus » June 28th, 2016, 2:56 pm

And the green line ghetto rolls on.
Well, the steady, middle-class vocation-style and manufacturing jobs have all been offshored (because it was just so Mean and Unfair of us to assess taxes to support the infrastructure that makes a profitable, industrialized society possible in the first place). And structurally, there simply cannot ever be enough professional positions for everyone to just Work Harder And Become A Stockbroker So They Can Afford A SFH™. And the people who propose the former as a serious solution are usually the same ones who can't abide their fast-food taco going from $1.19 to $1.39 (so that the surfeit of service jobs America has been left with could pay something closer to a living wage).

So, yeah... affordable housing proposals. Because people have to live somewhere. And why not somewhere transit-accessible... somewhere that would potentially allow residents to avoid channeling a large chunk of their limited resources into car ownership? Maybe they could instead build that into some moderate amount of enduring wealth. Possibly even enough to embark on further education and training. Of course, that means people with more options who can stand up for their economic interests, instead of just taking what immediate survival forces them to take at the time. And the last thing an emerging oligarchy would want is for The Proles to have any leverage.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby RailBaronYarr » June 28th, 2016, 3:29 pm

Here's a hot take on scale: a six-story apartment building with windows and doors and maybe an actual sidewalk with a setback >0' along it would be better than a 25' high, 400' long blank wall and then another 200' long blank wall 6' from the curb along Emerald. So maybe this is a case where traditional ideas of scale and transition or whatever could maybe be ignored in the interest of getting as many people as possible within a quarter mile walk of that there light rail station. Especially if the height/massing were used to create a really nice E-W park in the middle of the long N-S parcel connecting Curfew to Sharon as a concession-of-sorts.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Qhaberl » June 28th, 2016, 4:51 pm

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... -paul.html

This article indicates 620 apartments. Also indicates a mixture of affordable and market rate.


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MplsErik
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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby MplsErik » June 29th, 2016, 8:35 am

disastrous consequences? Am I missing something here?

disastrous consequences
Didn't Dominion build the apartments literally across Franklin from this site? They are quite the "disaster."
https://goo.gl/maps/xYM5PaAgHGJ2

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby min-chi-cbus » June 29th, 2016, 9:46 am

And the green line ghetto rolls on.
Well, the steady, middle-class vocation-style and manufacturing jobs have all been offshored (because it was just so Mean and Unfair of us to assess taxes to support the infrastructure that makes a profitable, industrialized society possible in the first place). And structurally, there simply cannot ever be enough professional positions for everyone to just Work Harder And Become A Stockbroker So They Can Afford A SFH™. And the people who propose the former as a serious solution are usually the same ones who can't abide their fast-food taco going from $1.19 to $1.39 (so that the surfeit of service jobs America has been left with could pay something closer to a living wage).

So, yeah... affordable housing proposals. Because people have to live somewhere. And why not somewhere transit-accessible... somewhere that would potentially allow residents to avoid channeling a large chunk of their limited resources into car ownership? Maybe they could instead build that into some moderate amount of enduring wealth. Possibly even enough to embark on further education and training. Of course, that means people with more options who can stand up for their economic interests, instead of just taking what immediate survival forces them to take at the time. And the last thing an emerging oligarchy would want is for The Proles to have any leverage.
The sad thing is there are theories out there that today's suburbs/exurbs will become tomorrow's "inner city", where the poorest people reside because they're pushed out. Then they'd be poor AND have poor transit, unlike now.

Didier
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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Didier » June 29th, 2016, 10:47 am

disastrous consequences? Am I missing something here?
I think Qhaberl was referring to the idea of wedging a housing project here, as opposed to doing a market-rate development with a percentage of affordable units.

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby IntrepidEmu » June 30th, 2016, 4:17 pm

I used to live in one of the strangely placed houses on this block on Curfew street. I have no personal attachment to them (most of them were in terrible condition in 2011 when I lived there), but out of curiosity are they going to be redeveloped with the rest of the site?

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Re: Weyerhaueser site redevelopment - 700 Emerald St

Postby Didier » June 30th, 2016, 6:31 pm

Nope, those houses are separate.


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