urbanMSP

The city put up a post on the fate of the former Roger's gas station at Minnetonka Blvd and TH 100.

https://www.stlouispark.org/news-update ... -blvd.html

Short story, it'll likely stay vacant for a few more years until MNDOT decides it is excess land deserving sale. It was bought for highway construction purposes which may not be considered over until all landscaping is in place and MNDOT is confident.

A 111-unit hotel and 150-unit apartment proposed for the former-Santorini site.

http://finance-commerce.com/2017/06/hot ... rini-site/

Since it is adjacent to the office tower at 169 and 394, why so short here?

Economics.

Details on the proposed project on the old Santorini site at the northwest corner of 169 and 394. One building will be a 150-unit apartment and the other building will be a hotel.

https://www.stlouispark.org/government/ ... atia-place

The Texas Ave reconstruction (now with actual bike lanes!) will be complete this Friday.

https://twitter.com/stlouispark/status/ ... 4259105798

Cool. Now people can stop tearing past the Bappe mansion and running my stop sign.

As someone who lives on Texas, I was very hopeful the reduced lane size would slow people down. But based on what I've seen so far with even just the local traffic using the new pavement, that was naive.

Sam's Club is closing at Highway 7 & Louisiana Avenue. Any chance to redevelop the site as TOD with Southwest LRT going through there or will it remain as is?

That was my first thought, but the area is surrounded by light industrial. I'd be fine with it getting replaced with a HyVee laid out with the station in mind - something to bring people more people to this part of town than a club store.

Around the border of the lot is an important connection for the Cedar Lake Trail and if SWLRT gets delayed again, I don't want the trail to get neglected (or become dangerous due to proximity to a giant abandoned lot tucked away from a lot of eyes) waiting for something else.

Any development would also need to accommodate the high water table and legacy of superfund pollution nearby.

Any development would also need to accommodate the high water table and legacy of superfund pollution nearby.

Weren't there stories a little while back about creosote sludge being dug up during road construction? This location is just southeast of the former site of the creosote plant.

Do we know for sure that this one isn't being turned into an Ecommerce fulfillment site? This article says 63 closing, and 10 of those will be repurposed.

https://amp.businessinsider.com/walmart ... ssion=true

I hope that's not the case. Seems like a weird spot for a distribution center that's trying to emulate Amazon.

The Hopkins Cold Storage site was considered the largest redevelopment site along the SWLRT. The station area visions for Louisiana, that I recall, always seemed to expect the Sam’s site would remain, though the edges of the parking lot along Louisiana Ave were redeveloped as small retail.

If the Sam’s site goes on the market for redevelopment, it appears much larger than the developable acres of the Cold Storage site, making the Sam’s site the largest SWLRT station redevelopment site now. A wise redevelopment would divide the site into multiple smaller blocks. Maybe a new street cutting through the Sam’s site over to Monitor. A new public street from Louisiana to Monitor could make the hospital outlot more attractive for redevelopment.

Even though the water table is as high as it is, without excavating down a single lower level of parking, if you built housing above ground floor parking it would put the first floor pretty much right at the Cedar Lake Trail elevation.

A new street or two breaking up the Sam’s Club area is a wonderful idea.

I think it’s pretty safe to assume that redevelopment is going to occur all along the SWLRT line. In SLP & Hopkins, the land uses along the rail line are virtually all industrial, low value, with huge parking lots.

Another area ripe for redevelopment is 35th St. west of Beltline Blvd. Several times a week I go there, whether it’s to the gym (there are several) or Steel Toe Brewery. All those uses have to be prime targets for redevelopment as SWLRT gets closer (although the timeline seems to be getting further away).

Does anyone know what is going into the Granite City location on Excelsior Blvd & Hwy 100?

I had heard that Chipotle and Brueggers were moving into the Granite Cuty location and that a new building will be going into their current space for Park Nicollet.

I had heard that Chipotle and Brueggers were moving into the Granite Cuty location and that a new building will be going into their current space for Park Nicollet.

Aren't they both "tucked under" the movie theater?

Those are tucked under, Caribou and Boston Market is in a stand-alone building. Maybe they’re the ones relocating? But Park Nicollet has a huge bare plot across the driveway from McDonalds and the movie theater. Why not build there?

There were no movie titles on the theater marquee, maybe that building will be demolished after all?

First update, the apartments and hotel proposal for the former-Santorini site now has a name. Platia Place

Not the best drawing by Eric Anondson, on Flickr

One note from the Feb 12th council agenda, the developer is asking for a bit of TIF to help fix "structural soil" issues that make development a problem, clean up the old site, and to make the TIF more palatable to also remove three billboards. I really like the billboard removal part.
The apartments value upon completion is estimated at $30M, the hotel valued at $8M. $3.5M to be paid as-you-go over 9 years is being considered to help the financing gap related to site prep costs.