urbanMSP

Anyone know when Microsoft's lease(s) expire at Normandale Village? "Campus" seems like such a Microsoft thing. This would keep their regional HQ on the 494 strip, but make it slightly more appealing for the won't-consider-suburban-jobs tech worker crowd.

Long shot here.. Amazon HQ2?

Finance & Commerce article (unlocked) with more info.

Sounds like phase one would be mostly production/logistics uses. Interesting.

The campus would consist of multiple buildings, city documents show. An initial phase of construction scheduled for 2020 would include 185,000 square feet of space including “high bay” industrial structures, 56,000 square feet of production space, a “robot automated warehouse,” logistics space and 14,000 square feet of office space. Two office buildings would rise on the property in separate phases scheduled for 2025 and 2035. Another 56,000 square feet of production space would be built in 2030.

WOW! That is a long term plan.

Ah yes, our transit-oriented warehouse and robotized factory district!

Better there than in a cornfield in Shakopee or something. At least it will be transit-accessible.

If you look at these files it states it's in the airport safety zone, so not much can be done here.

https://agendasuite.org/iip/bloomington ... tails/6524


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I'd be disappointed (though not surprised) if that plan was accepted without being amended. The site is 14.35 acres, or about 625,000 square feet, and the eventual plan would be to add 614,000 square feet of interior space. I mean, yay for achieving an FAR of about 1, but that's a pretty big plot of land in an area that needs streets reorganized to improve walkability.

Seems like the city might want to extend 26th Ave further north through this plot and possibly add a 27th Ave between 26th and 28th. Any chance of reorganizing this to make a bit more 2- or 3-story space, to match nearby buildings?

Also, it would be nice if a decent street wall could be developed along Lindau Ln, which at least has the potential to have an urban feel to it (at least compared to American Blvd). Putting the (future) parking structure there along with an (also future) building angled at 45 degrees is not really conducive to improving comfort for people walking/biking/whatever.

Does anybody know what (if any) height limitations might apply to these parcels?

It's under "LX" ("Lindau Mixed Use") zoning with an "AR-17" (Airport Runway) overlay, and the height rules for that defer to the "2004 MSP Zoning Ordinance." Looks like LX zoning sets minimums rather than maximums, saying that at least 60% of a building must be 25 feet (and two stories) or more, if you're at the minimum standard FAR of 0.7. The height requirement grows if you want to go below 0.7 to an absolute minimum FAR of 0.5.

Maximum height is unclear, since Plate A-21 in this document refers to altitude rather than trying to measure the distance between the runway approach's safety envelope and every particular point on the ground. Looks like it ranges from roughly 880 feet up to about 910 feet as you pass over the block from north to south.

The 5-story AC Hotels Marriott building across the street and slightly west is in an area with a maximum altitude of 920 feet, though I don't know if they're reaching the maximum with that or not.

What technology companies would also need production/logistics space? Amazon would have that kind of need, but I've never heard of companies like Facebook, Google, & Microsoft needing it. Maybe Apple? (because they have physical products?)

I bet it's Amazon.

Microsoft and Google now produce alot of their own hardware, but not sure of either doing it stateside.

It's trendy for almost all companies to refer to themselves as "tech companies" these days. It could be a lot of different things.

Yeah, most likely it's someone we're not thinking of.

Is there a medical device company that needs a regional HQ here that isn't already HQ'ed here?

I don't think anybody said the company wasn't from here, right? Could just be poaching from somewhere else in the metro.

If we’re going down the “every company can call itself a tech company” speculation, if we’re thinking about the med tech that is significant around here, maybe it’s a company doing a Medtronic move like when they built their larger campus up 35W though they had a site in Fridley.

Target, UPS or FedEx?

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It's Sick AG, a German industrial sensor firm with it's US HQ in Bloomington. (Locked) Apparently they're also considering Houston, so I assume they're trying to set up a subsidy war.

Minneapolis probably has some of the best concentration of administrative talent a company would want at a headquarters operation.