St. Louis Park - General Topics

[mamundsen]

Somewhat related, my parents live in Mounds View and they actually have a tear down assistance program for certain homes that are deemed undesirable. I haven't fully looked into it, but I believe all the data is here: http://www.gmhchousing.org/1755-2

[min-chi-cbus]

They still have it. The program is called "Move Up In The Park", it is a discounted loan for remodeling. The is also the Community Fix Up Loan that is for people with tighter incomes who would like to stay in the city but repairing their home might be beyond their means.

http://www.stlouispark.org/remodeling-i ... tives.html

Wow -- great to know! My wife and I would strongly consider living in SLP if/when we move back to the area for a.) its accessibility and proximity to everything, b.) its RELATIVE diversity, c.) its good schools, d.) its semi-urban nature, e.) its progressive transformation, and f.) semi-affordable housing. The dream for me would be to find a little starter home in a great neighborhood like Minnikhada Vista and be able to expand on our home once the kids start getting bigger and we out-grow our home.

This program makes this dream one step closer to reality (even if we're several years away from being in such a position)!

[twincitizen]

Strib takes a look at how the West End development is spilling across 394 into Golden Valley: http://www.startribune.com/local/west/280672422.html

[Anondson]

Parkdales office complex for sale.

http://m.bizjournals.com/twincities/blo ... tml?r=full

For reference, this is the sad looking offices and parking lots south of West End. Would love to see this redeveloped with access roads run through breaking up the mega block.

[sdho]

Parkdales office complex for sale.

http://m.bizjournals.com/twincities/blo ... tml?r=full

For reference, this is the sad looking offices and parking lots south of West End. Would love to see this redeveloped with access roads run through breaking up the mega block.

Life Time Fitness contracts with them for overflow parking, though. If their parking lot weren't so empty and pathetic, WHERE would gym-goers park?

[maxbaby]

Fresh Thyme
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... lsior.html

[Anondson]

Sheesh. That'll put, what four grocery stores within a mile of each other. TJs, Byerly's, Target, and this.

Oooooookay. With enough density this makes perfect sense and maybe SLP is not joking about getting density around the LRT stations at Wooddale and Beltline. Maybe it portends multi use development of the poorly used former-Citizens Independent bank building and Zip Printing properties a block down Excelsior.

SLP has a history of letting certain business types come in and not protect existing players. If there is demand, why stand in the way. This played out with Target getting its liquor license, placing five liquor stores along the Hopkins border in a short distance from each other.

The only business I can come up with that the city fought hard against was Pawn America trying to use the property at the northwest corner of Excelsior and 100.

[xandrex]

SLP has a history of letting certain business types come in and not protect existing players. If there is demand, why stand in the way. This played out with Target getting its liquor license, placing five liquor stores along the Hopkins border in a short distance from each other.

I'm not saying you necessarily support this point, but why should the government care about existing players? If grocery stores want to hash it out on price/quality/whatever, that really ends up being great for consumers.

[Anondson]

I don't support it in the least. I point it out mostly for its seeming rarity, I'm applauding it!

I understand the protectionist impulse when a small local mom and pop is threatened with an outside chain, that is an old and familiar story with familiar outcomes few of us like after they play out. Keeping local money local is in a city's interest for long term economic health.

There may be tools in a city's toolbox that can keep an even competitive field that is short of full bans on business types with a radius of a competitor.

[Anondson]

Just sold for $107MM after being de-malled. Buyer not revealed yet.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... uring.html

Hope whoever owns it has plans for the dark corners now that the center has been polished. I'd love a multi use retail-residential building built on the old TCF property.

[blobs]

de-malled...lol!

Wishful thinking...but I notice this with New Urbanism in suburbs...they gotta make the roads smaller here. The roads are too damn wide. Similar feel in Richfield too. It just doesn't feel right having New Urbanism but still giant streets.

[seanrichardryan]

NOW you can drive to each store instead of walking!

[twincitizen]

de-malled...lol!

Wishful thinking...but I notice this with New Urbanism in suburbs...they gotta make the roads smaller here. The roads are too damn wide. Similar feel in Richfield too. It just doesn't feel right having New Urbanism but still giant streets.

It's not really the width of the right-of-way, but the fact that they don't allow on-street parking whatsoever. They're doing a bunch of 4:3 road diets all over the inner burbs, and that is really great, but in some areas they really ought to be allowing on-street parking to promote future "new-urbanism" development. Public Works departments look at an old strip mall, set back from the road with massive parking lots and say "Why the hell would we provide on-street parking next to that?" The problem is that it isn't Public Works' job to plan for future redevelopment. Some of the aforementioned 4:3 road diets really should be dieted down to 2 lanes, forgoing the center turn lane, except at major intersections where turning cars actually create delays. We also need a mandate for speed limits to be 30MPH (or less) everywhere that isn't a highway (throughout the core cities and inner ring). The 35MPH limits, most of which are on long, straight county roads permitting average speeds of 38-40+MPH are a huge impediment to livability, development, etc.

[sdho]

It's not really the width of the right-of-way, but the fact that they don't allow on-street parking whatsoever. They're doing a bunch of 4:3 road diets all over the inner burbs, and that is really great, but in some areas they really ought to be allowing on-street parking to promote future "new-urbanism" development. Public Works departments look at an old strip mall, set back from the road with massive parking lots and say "Why the hell would we provide on-street parking next to that?" The problem is that it isn't Public Works' job to plan for future redevelopment. Some of the aforementioned 4:3 road diets really should be dieted down to 2 lanes, forgoing the center turn lane, except at major intersections where turning cars actually create delays. We also need a mandate for speed limits to be 30MPH (or less) everywhere that isn't a highway (throughout the core cities and inner ring). The 35MPH limits, most of which are on long, straight county roads permitting average speeds of 38-40+MPH are a huge impediment to livability, development, etc.

Yes, this. Rights-of-way in the first ring tend to actually be very narrow compared to new suburbs and even compared to Minneapolis and St. Paul. For example, almost every street in Richfield currently has 66' ROW (except for small sections of 66th, soon to be more sections of 66th). By comparison, Lyndale and Chicago Aves in Minneapolis have more like 80-100' ROW. Curb-to-curb width is often similar, but because no space is used for parking, it feels massive. And because there's no ROW to spare, sidewalks end up right against the curb and the narrowing effect of street trees is lost.

I've had similar arguments with Richfield PW staff, some of whom feel that the street only responds to the development, not vice versa. That is, when a perfectly urban developer comes in, creates great sidewalk frontage, then we can add on-street parking. (Yet it doesn't always work out even when that is the case... see the lack of parking on Lyndale Ave in front of Kensington Park.)

That said, at least preliminarily, they do plan to add speculative parking to parts of 66th -- and to substantial portions of Lyndale. I agree that we could be a lot more creative with our road diets than a straight 4-to-3. There is little worse use of 12' of public space than a dedicated turn lane for convenient turns into driveways.

[bapster2006]

150 housing units and some office space proposed for southwest corner of Hy 7 and France Avenue. The developer, Bader development, would demolish the ASAP and Battlefield store buildings as well as a few buildings on the south side of the lot. Public hearing next week.

Page 4 of the city document discusses the project and includes a site plan and render.

http://www.stlouispark.org/webfiles/fil ... packet.pdf

[sdho]

By the way, for comparison, check out Nicollet Ave in Windom vs Richfield. It's actually the exact same width of street, similar age, and similar crappy sidewalks. Both have a mix of alley-served and front driveways, too.

Yet the Windom section feels a lot more intimate and slow. In part that's due to the houses having a smaller setback. But on-street parking definitely makes a difference.





(The lack of on-street parking also encourages, shall we say, "creative" expansions of the driveways to accommodate guest parking. There's actually a relatively high-quality one visible in the left side of the Richfield picture. Some are just gravel thrown down, or established tire tracks in dirt.)

[mattaudio]

What's the reason for *not* allowing on-street parking?

[Nick]

Yeah, the one without parking looks super weird--do they expect lots of breakdowns?

[twincitizen]

St. Louis Park and Hennepin County really need to figure out what the F they're going to do with CR-25 here. My dream would've been to simply terminate the highway at Hwy. 100, forcing all Hwy 7 traffic to go either north or south on 100, meaning they could use Mtka Blvd or Excelsior to continue eastward. That's probably too extreme/unrealistic, and the actual vision is more like converting CR-25 to a slower, narrower street without all the frontage road wastes of space. Ideally, the "new" CR-25 would just take the southern frontage road and upgrade that to something useable, then tear out the existing CR-25 and northern frontage road, filling in the street grid and developing the empty space. How you merge that new smaller road with Lake St is the big question, and I really don't think they should approve this development until they answer it.

[blobs]

St. Louis Park and Hennepin County really need to figure out what the F they're going to do with CR-25 here. My dream would've been to simply terminate the highway at Hwy. 100, forcing all Hwy 7 traffic to go either north or south on 100, meaning they could use Mtka Blvd or Excelsior to continue eastward.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.