Mall of America - Bloomington

[mattaudio]

When the planned MOA station was relocated into the parking ramp and routed along 28th Ave/Old Shakopee, it added at least two minutes to the timetable. It would be much simpler and cheaper in the long run if the tracks just went due west along 82nd Ave and then terminated where this new Lindau grade separation was. It would also allow for easy interlining of future routes westward.

[fehler]

An American Boulevard station would better interline with westbound routes, facilitate with a MOA 3.0 in the north side of AB (replacing Marriott/Thunderbird), and could even connect with an inline Ceder Avenue BRT station, should this ever occur (not that any BRT alignment wouldn't exit Ceder and stop at the MOA). The MOA is getting bigger, two LRT stops are warrented.

[mattaudio]

But, it's sort of like the stop spacing debate for local buses. Theoretically there's no difference in maximum walking for any location in the mall for one stop on Lindau, or two stops at Killebrew and American.

[FISHMANPET]

Is MOA 3.0 an actual thing that anyone has ever talked about, or one of our UrbanMSP creations? I'd think at that point, the mall would need some kind of internal circulator, because holy hell that's quite a distance.

[Le Sueur]

I was under the impression the current expansion is just a stepping stone.
The expansion into the North parking lot West of Ikea would be 2.0 (Lots of High end shops).
No 3.0. But then again doesn't really matter.

[Chauncey87]

72,000 Ladybugs Released in Mall of America

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, the nursery rhyme advises.

And some 72,000 ladybugs have found a home within the Mall of America, where mall managers have released the insects inside the fully enclosed shopping and entertainment complex.

The Bloomington, Minn., mall, which is so huge it could hold seven Yankee Stadiums, also has more than 30,000 live plants, including about 400 trees, which act as natural air purifiers for the indoor mall.


http://news.yahoo.com/72-000-ladybugs-r ... 56307.html

I thought this is pretty cool.

[min-chi-cbus]

Oh yuck!

One summer in 2007 my apartment was infested with June Bugs ("Box Outters") and Ladybugs and it was f'ing disgusting! There is NOTHING cute about thousands and thousands of these things when they are in your home, I can assure you! AND, they omit some odd chemical odor to boot, so you get to endure that as well.

If I were at this ceremony and didn't know about the ladybugs I'd probably freak out and run like hell!!!

[mister.shoes]

You're thinking of the orangish asian beetle that stink so much. The traditional red ladybug is not nearly as annoying, nor is it smelly.

[TWA]

Off topic and min-chi-cbus you can probably attest to this as well, but when I first moved to Columbus and mentioned that I was from minnesota every single person said "Oh that's where the Mall of America is!" must be the most well known thing about the state to a lot of people

[Le Sueur]

72,000 Ladybugs Released in Mall of America...

Not sure where I originally read it before, but I was surprised when this was a big story because I was sure I had heard it before.

Anyway, weird sense of déjà vu for a couple of days until I ran across this:
http://blog.mallofamerica.com/miscellan ... f-america/

Looks like they've been doing it for at least a couple of years so no worries I don't think they will be taking over J Crew.

[Didier]

What's the latest on the Bloomingdales replacement stores? Outside of Forever 21 it is still vacant, as far as I know. I thought this would be moving faster, especially if the next phase is supposed to bring in more "high end" shops.

[FISHMANPET]

Do you mean the old store is still vacant? The new Forever 21 is definitely open.

[spearson]

New logo:
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... gline.html

[mattaudio]

I don't think there's some sort of time warp occuring here, but I swear I've seen that "new" MOA logo somewhere else within the past 3 or 4 months. Were they already using it somewhere?

[seanrichardryan]

They have been using it for all of their advertising for a while now.

[seanrichardryan]

STRIB reports up to 250 Million in tax breaks for the MOA, featuring an elaborate rendering- http://www.startribune.com/business/208425631.html

[seanrichardryan]

[mattaudio]

Oh yeah spotlights at night instead of fireworks. And I'm sure as soon as they zoom in, there will be semi-translucent families where kids are holding big bundles of colorful balloons. Gotta love renderings.

But seriously, we can't get the LRT station moved to the middle of the complex? Good luck walking from the Ikea corner to the LRT.

[min-chi-cbus]

Who's to say that they won't reconfigure the station as part of this major overhaul/expansion? I'm personally not counting it out just yet. Anything (ANYTHING) they can do to get more people closer to the mall and closer to the stores is in their best interest.

I made a comment on the Strib but I'm not sure if it got posted, but basically I have doubts that a metro with 3.5 million people can support so much retail in one location. The other cities in the world with the world's largest malls (like Dubai and mega Chinese cities) are all huge metropolises, and as much as I'd like to consider Minneapolis in that realm, it really isn't yet. If their goal is to gain 20M+ NEW tourists annually to the mall then the mall is going to have to be one-of-a-kind and so compelling that even disgruntled dads/husbands/boyfriends like myself would WANT to go to this mall and spend my vacation AND my money there -- that's not an easy feat! I personally don't think that wave pools or ice rinks will come close to cutting it either, and I don't have a lot of better ideas, but I hope Tripple Five does!!

[mplsjaromir]

Dubai is not a huge metropolis. They do have lots of money and a penchant for building skyscrapers. Dubai has about 2 million people and the all of the UAE has 8 million folks. They draw heavily from tourist as does the Mall of America.