Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Multimodal » January 18th, 2019, 10:40 am

Calling that odd corner a park is really a bit of a stretch. They didn't make it inviting at all and the sculpture leaves a lot to be desired.
I think you also have to understand the surroundings. While there are crosswalks there, it might be one of the busiest intersections in SLP, and the traffic is really moving around that corner. That coupled with all of the seniors in the area doesn't bode well. Besides that there is a parking lot across 36th where all of the small businesses are located. Why would anyone want to cross the street to look at lame sculpture and some potted plants? Towerlight itself is just senior housing and a daycare, so there's not much going on there unless your visiting or dropping off kids.
Thank you. I could hardly have made the point better myself.

Now mentally flip 36th Street around so that TowerLight is on the north and those shops are on the south and transpose it on top of 77th Street at Pentagon Park north. So behind TowerLight is the Nine Mile Creek Trail and Fred Richards Park.

At 77th St., you don’t even have the nice shops across the street the way you do at 36th, but pretend it’s been redeveloped.

Are you going to go from the park and/or trail, past this long dead block, cross a busy street, to go to some potential shops? Because there are zero shops on the Pentagon Park (TowerLight) side. This is just something you have to slog through, because there’s no activity on the street.

Or are you more likely to continue east on the trail to France or west to 70th & Cahill, each of which has eateries & coffee shops & other destinations? Remember, you’ll hit the new 7200/7250 France development on the west side of France (which is a great development), so you won’t even need to cross France.

And are you likely to walk or bike to the park past this vast emptiness, or is it just better to drive there? What kind of user behavior is this development style encouraging in terms of people using the park/trail & getting there?

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Ubermoose » January 18th, 2019, 11:15 am

Point taken.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby sdho » January 18th, 2019, 7:19 pm

Regarding the idea we have plenty of land -- my other general comment is that for 99.9% of our metro area, tall buildings are not really about getting the most density on the least amount of land. Even in or near downtown Minneapolis, it's not necessarily about the max du / acre, etc.

It's to provide an amenity for the residents and the community, and create a landmark. Views are nice. Views are better higher up.

And IMO the entire community benefits from well-placed tall buildings.
So, if I understand you correctly, next to the highest-density area outside of Mpls & St. Paul downtowns, you’d want/allow 20+ story towers on, say, the east side of Xerxes, if there were demand for it? Image
The direct analog to west side of France, to be clear, would be York-Xerxes block, not Xerxes-Washburn, etc. In fact, we already have buildings as high as 13 stories (Durham) in that area. Xerxes in this area is not even remotely as regional in character as France.

But I realize that's a cheater, since those are Edina's decisions, not Richfield's.

So to the specific area you are asking about: it is currently zoned for up to 30 du / acre apartments. My preference would have been to zone it to high-density (up to 100 du/acre) as part of the 2040 comp plan, given the trends on the other side of Xerxes. Instead, it is an "area of change" where we have indicated willingness to look at changing designation and zoning.

Were the market there and the design as careful as Estelle's (missing middle built right in! on the back), yes, I would absolutely support it. City Bella and Gramercy in downtown Richfield are 15 and 12 stories respectively, and people seem perfectly happy with them, despite being very close to single-family homes.

I would strongly prefer to see that growth focus near 66th Street -- like Estelle was on France Ave. The Southdale Square site would be a decent comparison.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Multimodal » January 21st, 2019, 8:25 am

The direct analog to west side of France, to be clear, would be York-Xerxes block, not Xerxes-Washburn, etc.
The thing is, they’re different enough that they’re not directly comparable. West-of-France is very mixed, with no clear delineation, whereas York-Xerxes is a clear block with clear distinction from single family houses.

Image

50 years from now, when France-to-York is all built out and urbanized, then, sure, I can see density starting to creep outwards from the core. But today, with city demographics & politics what they are, there’s just no reason to take an arrow in the back for something that could very easily be a block away and make everyone happy.

I’m really not sure what the developers were thinking, other than “hey, we have this convenient, cheap lot”?

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Multimodal » January 21st, 2019, 8:33 am

Some day I’m going to search for this conversation about France & Xerxes & Edina & Richfield, and I’ll never look in the Pentagon Park thread.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby sdho » January 21st, 2019, 2:49 pm

Some day I’m going to search for this conversation about France & Xerxes & Edina & Richfield, and I’ll never look in the Pentagon Park thread. Image
Truth. You make a compelling point about the differences between west-of-France and east-of-York. Still, I think the simple answer is that York has exclusively tall buildings because *the city allowed tall buildings there*. You're describing results of planning choices as much as inherent differences that justify them. None of those buildings are particularly old. Onyx replaced single-story commercial. Aria is doing that now. Durham is older, but still not *that* old -- mid-80s.

As for spread of densification -- we have had these conversations in Richfield too. For example, people will ask why a developer is bulldozing 4 houses on E 66th to build a multi-tenant commercial space, when they could be building on already-commercial and underutilized Hub site. And I think most people would agree that would be great if they built there. But the simple answer is that they don't own that land, they do own (or have a purchase agreement for) the houses on E 66th. I think the same thinking applies to Southdale.

Of course, there isn't really that much underutilized land between France and York. Lots of short buildings, but many are doing well, fully leased, etc. But let's say, hypothetically, Estelle could have been a sweet liner building to the oversized Target parking lot. That would be great -- but if Target doesn't want to sell land for that purpose, that's a nonstarter. Many of the other underutilized sites are naturally occurring affordable (rental and condo) buildings. I'd definitely rather see a single-story Bremer branch get redeveloped before losing dozens or hundreds of housing units just to get the tallest buildings between the designated streets.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Anondson » July 9th, 2019, 5:31 pm

The western portion along the 100 frontage road will start soon.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... ay-as.html

I wish they could have realigned the low-traffic frontage road so that it approaches the intersection in a less awkward direction that didn’t take up so much space.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby nordeast homer » July 11th, 2019, 10:48 am

I work directly next to this project. There are way too many things to scratch you head about with this thing. If you have a blank slate this is what you come up with?! The parking structure is already up. All of the internal streets and curbing are in, but none of the buildings have been started or look to be starting soon.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Multimodal » August 8th, 2019, 5:32 am

The western portion along the 100 frontage road will start soon.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... ay-as.html

I wish they could have realigned the low-traffic frontage road so that it approaches the intersection in a less awkward direction that didn’t take up so much space.
The office building will start soon? I thought that’s the most speculative part of this whole thing? It’s on the western portion.

The curves in the frontage road keep the traffic slow!

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby sdho » August 8th, 2019, 5:37 pm

The curves in the frontage road keep the traffic slow!
They do, but they also make the approach really confusing and make it very hard to see pedestrians crossing that leg. You don't see them until you've made that final twist and are fully encroaching on the crosswalk. Would be nice to have a curve a bit farther south, so approach to light is at a right angle.

Hopefully they'll at least reduce that frontage road to two lanes? It's a pretty silly 4LDR right now

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Anondson » August 8th, 2019, 6:29 pm

I wish the frontage road between Computer Ave and 77th would gradually go away. I was thinking of something that could have straightened the frontage road approach, and broken up the megablock at the same time. Considering that the car wash isn't going away, but over time kinda ...
IMG_0268.jpeg
Then as the next stupid megablock south of Viking Dr gets its chance, we could have extended the road coming off the clover leaf through the next block.

It's a moot point now.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Multimodal » August 8th, 2019, 7:02 pm

Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the self-absorbed design. I pushed for the internal east-west street to at least go all the way through for bikes & peds, if not cars. And I wanted a safe north-south bicycle route that was direct, rather than the convoluted one they came up with.

Along the same lines of what you’re showing, we need a grid, not more cul-de-sacs.

That being said, I did like the way they connected to the northeast, so as to allow an eventual connection to Nine Mile Creek Trail.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby Multimodal » August 8th, 2019, 7:07 pm

Hopefully they'll at least reduce that frontage road to two lanes? It's a pretty silly 4LDR right now
That’s not part of this project. The frontage road is presumably MNDOT controlled? And Viking Dr. is the southern border of Edina there, so presumably that would be a big, multi-jurisdictional process.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby sdho » August 8th, 2019, 9:45 pm

Hopefully they'll at least reduce that frontage road to two lanes? It's a pretty silly 4LDR right now
That’s not part of this project. The frontage road is presumably MNDOT controlled? And Viking Dr. is the southern border of Edina there, so presumably that would be a big, multi-jurisdictional process.
"They'll" was intended as more of a general "hopefully that happens sometime", since the realignment likely won't.

As for it not being part of the project -- now that you mention it, it certainly should be. The developer and city managed to work out other improvements/changes to public streets, like adding the extra right turn lane off 77th (expanding the modest 5 lanes to 6 lanes approaching that private intersection), and improving public sidewalks on north side.

The four lane section is 90% in Edina, and merges to end as soon as it enters Bloomington. It has 3000 cars a day. I don't think this would be moving heaven and earth to reduce the lanes.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby sdho » May 1st, 2020, 8:14 am

Was out to see the progress on "Pentagon Village", and so far... yikes. The other parts will be more substantial, but the strip retail along 77th has appalling frontage. They've added new right-turn lanes to already-overbuilt 77th St at the private drive just east of the frontage road, and at Computer Avenue.

They've built one of the parking decks, so at least some indication there's a real intent to build more on the southern half of the site. (Wouldn't be of much use to the strip retail)

https://twitter.com/sdho/status/1256015579107991552

It's just incredible how much worse this is than Burgundy Place mixed-use across the street -- or even than the Jimmy John's / Starbucks strip on the other side of 100. That is not a great land use but has a wall of windows facing the street and two functional customer entrances.

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Re: Pentagon Park (Hwy 100 & Industrial Blvd) - Edina

Postby DanPatchToget » May 22nd, 2021, 2:14 pm

Apologies if this was already asked, but what was the logic behind building a parking ramp before the development? I biked over there today and the ramp is fenced off. The little plaza area looks nice, but it’s missing the buildings shown in renderings on giant signs around the site.


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