Highland Bridge: Ford Site Redevelopment

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MN Fats
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Highland Bridge: Ford Site Redevelopment

Postby MN Fats » June 25th, 2018, 3:14 pm

Ford selects Ryan Companies as developer per Nick Halter.

https://twitter.com/mspbjHalter/status/ ... 8964731910

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Re: Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant Redevelopment

Postby Anondson » June 25th, 2018, 7:37 pm

He tweeted Opus’ response to not being picked.

https://twitter.com/mspbjHalter/status/ ... 7722116098

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Re: Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant Redevelopment

Postby hiawather » June 25th, 2018, 8:18 pm

Ford selects Ryan Companies as developer per Nick Halter.

https://twitter.com/mspbjHalter/status/ ... 8964731910
This seems like big news to people who can weigh in intelligently about what Ryan Cos as a developer might mean to this project, a group which does not include me.

That being said, here's a link to some of their past projects. Ford is quite a behemoth of a development and I'm getting kid-before-Christmas giddy about things really starting to line up.

https://www.ryancompanies.com/projects

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Re: Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant Redevelopment

Postby mamundsen » October 8th, 2018, 5:32 pm

Master Plan on Wednesday!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/natehoodstp/ ... 2563247106
Big #FordSite Reveal:

Ryan Co. will reveal the Masterplan this Wednesday. 10+ years in the making.

I encourage you to show up, digest the info, share your input, and think of positive ways to engage as we move forward

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby tmart » October 9th, 2018, 6:55 am

Can someone smarter than me explain why this had to be handed off to a single developer as a megaproject instead of having the city handle all the cleanup/landscape/infrastructure type stuff and then sell off the parcels?

I'm a bit concerned about the concentration of real estate and capital in the Twin Cities, and I don't see how handing *an entire build-from-scratch neighborhood* over to the biggest developer in the state is going to make that situation better.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby twincitizen » October 9th, 2018, 7:06 am

It's pretty simple, no need to be smart. The City doesn't own the site - Ford does. It's a lot easier for Ford to sell the property to a single entity. Ryan has made an offer to close by the end of the year without contingencies (as noted in the Nick Halter tweet). The City was never going to purchase the site (I don't think they could have done so without state/county assistance, and Ramsey County is already over-committed on TCAAP and the old jail site downtown). We'll probably find out the purchase price by the end of the year...

The good thing is that the City has a clear vision for public streets running through the site in a fairly standard grid pattern, and the City plans to own & maintain that ROW. That vision at least (in theory) prevents suburban big-box development.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby tmart » October 9th, 2018, 12:27 pm

Ahh, shoot, that makes sense, yeah. I'd be curious to know a ballpark on what Ryan are paying. IMO redeveloping this land--and doing so as a proper urban neighborhood with varied, competitive ownership, rather than a megaproject--would have been a good use of state resources. But we here all know very well that state resources aren't exactly flowing for urbanist projects the way they are for stadiums and freeway reconstructions.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby MNdible » October 9th, 2018, 12:35 pm

If you're thinking of this as a monolithic mega project, that's probably not how this will actually play out. I'd expect that Ryan will partner with probably a dozen sub-developers (to try to minimize the risk and share the costs), each with their own strategies and architects and timelines. Even if the economy stays on a solid footing (which it won't), this will take probably 10-15 years to get built out.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby Nick » October 9th, 2018, 7:14 pm

Fifteen years even seems kind of optimistic, I’m still not sure how much demand there’s going to be for high-end apartment living in this spot.
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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby twincitizen » October 9th, 2018, 8:15 pm

It IS suspicious that none of the properties on the north side of Ford Pkwy have been redeveloped in the current housing boom...especially those within 2 blocks of the river like Petco, Firestone, and Bakers Square. There is one high-end project that got built on Cleveland & Highland Parkway, but even that had relatively few units (1st floor all retail, 2nd floor Edina Realty office). Logically one would think that if there were demand right here, right now, that we would have seen more than just that one development. The Petco is arguably a better housing development site than 95% of Ford's property.

That said, this site will get developed with high-end housing, it's just going to take the next 2 or 3 or 4 development boom cycles to finish. Every single person who showed up to a meeting to oppose the 4,000 units of housing will be dead by the time the last building opens.

Highland already has a lot going for it, especially now with the A Line running. Lots of very practical retail, as well as destination retail centered on Ford & Cleveland - in quantities/concentration that most other urban neighborhoods would die for. The amount of retail/restaurant around Ford & Cleveland is on par with the core of Uptown or Old St. Anthony (but maybe lacking in sit-down and overserved by fast-casual though).

I think the key to the pace of development on the Ford site, as well as its overall success is going to hinge on how well they manage the frontages of mixed use buildings on Ford Pkwy and down the Cretin extension, if they choose to put retail there. Most of the site interior, aside from those thoroughfares, is going to be purely residential, so they need to get those first few mixed-use buildings 100% right.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby EOst » October 9th, 2018, 8:48 pm

The north side of Ford Pkwy is (ridiculously) only T2, which pretty sharply limits what could be built there (generally a 35' height limit, max 3.0 FAR with structured parking, etc.). The Finn made it work anyway, but they're the exception for sure. T3 nodes like Snelling/St. Clair have seen more interest.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby twincitizen » October 9th, 2018, 9:31 pm

That's probably fine for now, as you (the public) certainly have an interest in pushing the market toward developing the Ford site to the highest possible intensity, rather than spreading demand across even more possible development properties. But once things on the Ford site are humming along and the major frontages have been built out along Ford & Cretin, I'd really hope the city will revisit that ridiculously low zoning along Ford. In the long run there is zero reason to not allow 6 stories along Ford Parkway between the river and Cretin Ave.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby karen nelson » October 10th, 2018, 4:48 pm

It will probably be the bulge of population of Millenial's kids that finally fill out this site.

By 2030, probably going to cooling off in real estate values as Millennials will be past their peak household formation and peak homebuying period (2020-2024). And there a bunch of trends that will likely take huge bit out of need for parking and open up a lot of land in primo spots for development, if ride-hail AVs along with always improving ebikes and other little EVs, bike share systems, BRT etc, work-from-arrangements - we may end up with a long period of real estate deflation after Millennials nest, except in regions where new industries, big employers pop.

It would be interesting to see how cities grow or not in next 100 years (but I won't be around) because we are never going to have the population surge of the last century, except for Africa. America is actually much younger than most other big economies, Europe, Japan, China but still we are old and leveling off in population, not growing.

Also, we just had a big shift back to American cities after an the exodus in 70s and 90s - so don't imagine any bigger redistribution of population within the U.S. towards cities again, at most, trend would just continue some.

To me, in long-term I'm less worried about housing supply than I am about shaping things towards a pleasant, thriving, healthy, sustainable, built environment.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby mamundsen » October 10th, 2018, 5:51 pm

Anyone going to the meeting tonight? I’ll share if I see details on twitter.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby Anondson » October 10th, 2018, 7:26 pm


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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby seanrichardryan » October 10th, 2018, 9:32 pm

It's... ok?
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

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Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby Anondson » October 10th, 2018, 9:58 pm

Well, the reserving single family mansions along the river is kinda gross. Unless by miracle those are going to be affordable housing *cough*? It’s not a hill to die on to get the rest to happen.

Only a single street connecting to the east neighborhoods, funneling all that traffic to one entrance on Montreal, guarantees a congested street, no?

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby Nathan » October 11th, 2018, 2:57 am

I like maintaining single family along the river parkways and the way density increases and steps up away from the river. They could have only increased density by 200 units so I feel like they did a pretty good job with the housing. Why would the affordable (which they're promising 20 percent of units) have to be on the river?

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby jtoemke » October 11th, 2018, 7:48 am

1) I think the amount of housing units will be flexible - nobody will remember 15 years from now how many they were allowed. Maybe they will? Who knows.

2) I try to leave a positive comment on every urbanist strib article now without reading all the hateful ones. Its going medium.

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Re: Ford Plant Redevelopment - Highland Park

Postby NickP » October 11th, 2018, 7:53 am

2) I try to leave a positive comment on every urbanist strib article now without reading all the hateful ones. Its going medium.
That’s awesome! Thanks for doing that. :-)


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