Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

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ECtransplant
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Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby ECtransplant » June 15th, 2012, 7:33 pm

Proposed single story development on the southwest corner of Lyndale and 27th. Off-sale liquor store adjacent to grocery store.

Approved by City Planning Commission on May 21.

Scheduled to be before the City Zoning and Planning Committee on June 21.

Full City Council vote June 29.

Meg Tuthill opposes rezoning for the development.

http://www.thewedge.org/wedge_paper/Wed ... _final.pdf

ECtransplant
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby ECtransplant » June 15th, 2012, 8:01 pm

Seems like the developer is trying to really push this.

http://www.traderjoeslyndale.com/about- ... community/

I have such mixed feelings both about the proposal and the developer's responses to the community.

I live in uptown, and would absolutely LOVE a Trader Joes I could walk to. I take the bus to the one in SLP on occasion, and would love to not have to do that anymore.

However, I really hate this design. Too much parking. Too suburban. The developer is even touting the lack of additional uses or stories as a positive:
Too much traffic and congestion
Added ingress/egress to 27th Street, two points of ingress/egress to the site, no additional stories with multiple uses, completed traffic study which shows no negative impacts caused by our project
:Facepalm:

Yet somehow having FAKE additional stories is urban???
Prefer a 2-story building design
Designed building to vary from 20’-30’ in height so that it gives appearance of 2-story building
:cry: :cry: :cry:

In fairness, they have done some cool things though :mrgreen: :
Too much surface parking
Relocated more than 50% of surface parking stalls under ground which nearly doubled our construction costs

. . .

Make bike friendly
Added 22 spaces for bikes at easily accessible locations

Incorporate sustainable features
Added living walls, white reflective roof, pervious pavers, landscaping, LED lighting, bike racks, benches, construction practices

. . .

Increase plaza and landscape buffer
Extended plaza into two parking stalls and widened landscape buffer

. . .

Reinforce street edge
Extended building further south

Make more pedestrian friendly
Pulled back alley fence, added crosswalks, benches, and glass at NEC of the building to increase visibility
Looks like they're even taking a page out of the downtown Lunds' book:
Remove spandrel glass
Changed glass to be 100% vision (clear) glass and incorporated glass into elevators
I suppose there can always be additional development on top of the surface parking lot 30 years or so from now . . .

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby Chef » June 16th, 2012, 12:27 am

This project is civic vandalism. They are tearing down half of an urban block and replacing it with a big box store.

garfield
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby garfield » June 16th, 2012, 8:35 am

It is tearing down an essentially vacant half-block, and replacing with a vibrant new asset to the community. I don't think urbanism is limited to great architecture and beautiful buildings, but can include a just O.K. building that's going to bring tons of life to the area.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby mulad » June 16th, 2012, 9:30 am

It wasn't "essentially half-vacant" until the existing tenants started getting kicked out because of the looming Trader Joe's proposal.

As far as I can tell, this new building will have far less square footage than the existing buildings have. They're taking two 2-story buildings and one 1-story building and putting in one 1-story building. In the long run, less value will be able to be extracted from the property -- the property taxes collected from the site are likely to go down rather than up, and that's not the way to keep a city sustainable.

This is also very close to the pedestrian-oriented overlay zoning district along Lake Street, which extends up Lyndale to 28th Street. Even though it's not technically under the PO zoning, this is a heavily pedestrian-, transit-, and bike-oriented area, and should be treated as such.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby John » June 16th, 2012, 9:50 am

There's a time and place for Trader Joe's to be in Minneapolis, and 27th and Lyndale is NOT it. There are other locations where it would fit in and serve the community better. Lyndale Ave should maintain its small scale, pedestrian friendly, locally owned retail focus in this area, utilizing the older buildings as much as possible.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby minntransplant » June 16th, 2012, 10:39 am

I support this project. I'm glad that the developer listened to many legitimate concerns and made modifications.

While it may be preferred to have TJs incorporated into a multi-use, multi-story, project, I still think that this will be a net plus to the neighborhood. TJs will likely attract more per-day visits than the existing businesses attract combined. TJs will likely employ more employees than the existing business do combined. TJs is a good employer and pays its workers above-average wages. These are all good things for the neighborhood and city.

As far as this not being a good location, the reality is that there are not many opportunities for new liquor stores in the neighborhood. This site is one of the few where a liquor store could open. TJs, obviously, only wants to open if they can operate a wine/liquor shop, something they are known for and is a big part of their business. If the neighborhood is to have a TJs (I think it wants one, as well), then this is one of the only choices for location (if not the only one).

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby mplser » June 16th, 2012, 12:37 pm

but people who shop at TJ's drive in and drive out contributing NOTHING to the neighborhood except for traffic. Their building design confirms this.

ECtransplant
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby ECtransplant » June 16th, 2012, 12:41 pm

but people who shop at TJ's drive in and drive out contributing NOTHING to the neighborhood except for traffic. Their building design confirms this.
I live in the area and would walk to shop at Trader Joes all the time. I'd probably shop there almost exclusively for groceries. TJs will be a HUGE amenity for the neighborhood. The abysmal design/architecture doesn't change that aspect.

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Nick
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby Nick » June 16th, 2012, 2:09 pm

but people who shop at TJ's drive in and drive out contributing NOTHING to the neighborhood except for traffic. Their building design confirms this.
Since when do people patronizing a business in a neighborhood have to "contribute" to that neighborhood? Isn't spending their money contributing..?
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby John » June 16th, 2012, 2:59 pm

The issue in this project is the devoloper does not share the same values or concerns that many people in this area find important. The Wedge and Whittier are two of the most liberal neighborhoods in Minneapolis. It is ( for the Twin Cities) highly urbanized and pedestrian oriented, with many people using public transit or bicycles as a primary source of transportation. The Trader Joe's proposal is a project that is clearly being developed with a suburban mentality and orientation towards the automobile. Realistically ,it seems evident that 27th and Lyndale is a very poor place to build a car oriented strip mall box. It's too dense an area and I can't believe it won't create huge traffic problems.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby mplser » June 16th, 2012, 3:25 pm

but people who shop at TJ's drive in and drive out contributing NOTHING to the neighborhood except for traffic. Their building design confirms this.
Since when do people patronizing a business in a neighborhood have to "contribute" to that neighborhood? Isn't spending their money contributing..?
they don't have to, but I don't buy the argument that this attracts people to spend money at other businesses. I realize some people who shop at trader joe's will walk or use public transit, but their business model is not acknowledging these customers at all. It seems the only people they care about are the ones that drive in and drive out creating some traffic problems for the neighborhood i'm sure.

ECtransplant
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby ECtransplant » June 16th, 2012, 3:43 pm

The issue in this project is the devoloper does not share the same values or concerns that many people in this area find important. The Wedge and Whittier are two of the most liberal neighborhoods in Minneapolis. It is ( for the Twin Cities) highly urbanized and pedestrian oriented, with many people using public transit or bicycles as a primary source of transportation. The Trader Joe's proposal is a project that is clearly being developed with a suburban mentality and orientation towards the automobile. Realistically ,it seems evident that 27th and Lyndale is a very poor place to build a car oriented strip mall box. It's too dense an area and I can't believe it won't create huge traffic problems.
What do you expect from a developer based in the suburbs, whose employees live in the burbs, and whose projects are all in the burbs? A different developer could have done so much more with this site.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby woofner » June 16th, 2012, 4:10 pm

Is there anything actually urban about this building? It's very low density (~.36 FAR), single use, and the curb cut on Lyndale is certain to be a barrier to pedestrians if the Wedge's parking lot is any indication. They could at least put a token door on the street someone that's only open during the day, like the new Lunds did. The lack of setback on the building would give it urban points, except that the parking lot has about an equal amount of street face at effectively infinite setback.

There needs to be a maximum parking lot street frontage written into the zoning code to prevent awful proposals like this from coming up again.
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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby Wedgeguy » June 17th, 2012, 2:30 am

I'd be for some thing above Trader Joe's, but I know that having a TJ 2 blocks away from me will me one less trip into the burbs for some of my favorites. I think having a light at 27th will do alot of good if the county and city can get the act together and with Traffic light timing and add a turn arrow at 28th so there will not be the back up when lights are ill timed.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby mullen » June 17th, 2012, 9:40 am

i don't live in the neighborhood but i watched the planning commission vote. the majority of speakers and property/business owners nearby supported trader joe's approval.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby Didier » June 17th, 2012, 11:46 pm

Maybe I'm naive, or totally off base, but doesn't the Wedge have a large parking lot and basically fit all of the same single-use building characteristics that are being derided here?

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby mulad » June 18th, 2012, 4:22 am

Yes. The Wedge Co-op has a similar, bad, layout. Their website says the building went up in 1992 and was expanded in 1997 and 2001. Yet another artifact of the great Dark Age of City Planning.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby mplser » June 18th, 2012, 8:49 am

yes, the wedge design is just as bad, and has been a plague on pedestrians and motorists in that area since it was built.

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Re: Trader Joes (Lyndale and 27th)

Postby Chef » June 18th, 2012, 9:12 am

I live a block from the Wedge. There is a special place in hell for people who try to make left turns into the Wedge parking lot during rush hour. It is probably the reason Lyndale traffic is so messed up around there. The fact that they have hired an off duty cop to direct traffic in and out of their lot on weekends should tell you everything you need to know about how bad a design it is.


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