Bloomington - General Topics

[HiawathaGuy]

Ever since the Mall of America was announced I've been hoping we could get an indoor waterpark to top the one in Edmonton.

Me too. Although, I'd prefer it to be located on American Blvd. and 24th Ave, at the far northern end of the MOA expansion lot (where plans have called for one). That or replace the Ramada property (that they own) with a much sexier (and visible) indoor water park. I'd love to have that here instead of needing to go to Wisconsin Dells, for many reasons.

[maxbaby]

How about one of these?
http://www.marriott.com/gaylord-hotels/travel.mi

[Anondson]

Will the Southdale county courts move to Bloomington?

http://current.mnsun.com/2016/02/19/wil ... oomington/

I thought this was a done deal, but folks are still negotiating this thing. Is there another better place to build this we can come up with? Why isn't this a done deal already since the government services center is already underway in Southdale Center?

[matthew5080]

OATI HQ actually.

And here's the rendering

Anyone else feel like this building is taking FOREVER to finish? I haven't been able to see any difference in it for the past couple of weeks tbh.

[mister.shoes]

I drive by every morning going WB and I've been more than a little surprised myself at the lack of activity. I'm assuming there's a metric ton of electrical work to do inside, given their business, but so much is left to be done outside that I can't imagine they're onto those stages internally. My best guess: they planned construction based on a "real" winter (paging Wedgeguy) and this unexpected warmth has them off guard.

[matthew5080]

"expansion" in Bloomington to the Two MarketPointe office building and by expansion they mean parking ramp...

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

[MNdible]

This may be a function of the densification of office space -- as businesses are packing more and more people into the same square footage, it could be that a parking lot that was formerly adequate is now undersized.

[twincitizen]

"Luckily" just about everything in the suburbs was built over-parked in the first place based on very high parking requirements.
Densification of office space = de facto right-sizing of existing parking lots/structures

But of course they will still build more to preserve the existing supply of empty parking spaces. Many people in the suburbs have this perception that a parking lot that is ~90% utilized is "full".

As an aside, this part of Bloomington always registers as "no, that's Edina" on my mental map, due to it being north of 494. I always forget that 494 swings south at France, leaving a slice of Bloomington on the "Edina side" of the freeway.

[MNdible]

"Luckily" just about everything in the suburbs was built over-parked in the first place based on very high parking requirements.
Densification of office space = de facto right-sizing of existing parking lots/structures

But of course they will still build more to preserve the existing supply of empty parking spaces. Many people in the suburbs have this perception that a parking lot that is ~90% utilized is "full"...

I certainly don't know the facts on the ground here, but I do know that parking ramps aren't cheap, and that a developer isn't building one for an existing building just for shits and giggles.

[twincitizen]

Yo what's up with this old part of Bloomington south of France & Old Shakopee?
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.808071, ... a=!3m1!1e3

It appears to be older than a lot of the neighborhoods to the north. Some of the houses date from the 1940s and are tiny little shacks (on giant 120' x 120' lots). And the street grid is more in character with parts of Bloomington far to the north and east of here. What caused this little part of town to develop so much earlier?

[matthew5080]

My Grandmother still reminisces about when Bloomington was a "town" and not a suburb.

[sdho]

My understanding is that the oldest parts of Bloomington are Oxboro and the area around Penn-France and Old Shakopee -- also the site of Bloomington's Old Town Hall. Also the site of a beautiful mid-aughts redevelopment.

I love seeing the prewar homes along Old Shakopee, set at a 45° angle from the street. Unfortunately, many don't appear to be in great repair (the ones immediately on OSR).

[Mdcastle]

Speculations:
1) Bloomington tended to grow out from the settlements of Bloomington, Oxboro, and south from Richfield simultaneously. This isn't too far from the Bloomington settlement at OSR and Penn.
2) The land is a lot more level than the rest of west Bloomington, which has significant hills, which may be a factor in the curvy streets.
3) It's by Old Shakopee Road, which was a major road and former state highway and presumably in much better repair than the rest of the roads.

[mulad]

I ended up poking around at the Borchert Map Library's aerials and found that much of the gridded area of the city popped up quickly in the years after WWII. Here are two shots of roughly the same area in 1945 and 1956, for example. The primitive interchange in the top left of each image (mostly cut off in the second one) is now Lyndale and I-494.

That piqued my interest since I've been working on a project to map city blocks with a size threshold of 15 acres, and Bloomington was one city where I made a map. It's pretty starkly different from Minneapolis (with many more blocks) and newer suburbs like Eden Prairie (many fewer blocks), but more or less on par with Rochester and Fargo. Both of the latter two cities have distinct downtowns, though -- Bloomington does not.

[EOst]

Man, that 1956 Bloomington aerial--not a tree in sight! It's easy in many ways to imagine this city 50 or 100 years ago, but I just can't imagine the cities without their modern tree canopies.

[Anondson]

Over $1 Billion in capital improvement projects planned for the city between 2016–2020.

http://current.mnsun.com/2016/04/18/blo ... 1-billion/

[matthew5080]

Most of the money is being spent on transportation, which is fine by me. I'm in favor of adding that on-ramp from Bush Lake road to 494 west

[Drizzay]

I feel bad for those people south of the river once that 35w bridge replacement comes.

[Mdcastle]

When they wanted to get out of the city for good, my parents looked around in Burnsville but ultimately bought a house in Bloomington because they didn't want the hassle of crossing the river... in 1968.
Construction shouldn't be too bad because they're maintaining two through lanes and the Lexus Lane in the peak direction. It'll be good to finally get standard width shoulders, a northbound auxiliary lane, and the bicycle trail.

[mattaudio]

I assume the plan is to start a northbound aux lane at Cliff Road (or even 13) and continue it right into the truck lane on the north end of the bridge? Or extend it even further to 98th Street exit-only?