Alia Tower - 200 Central - 483' / 40 Stories

Northeast, Near North, Camden, Old St. Anthony, University and surrounding neighborhoods
bapster2006
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby bapster2006 » April 29th, 2016, 5:50 pm

I'll be the "back in the day" guy. In the 80's it seemed like every building had at least an EAW if not an EIS. Did the rules change to not require them so often now? Of course, most buildings back then were over 4-500 feet so I don't know if size dictated the EAW.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby FISHMANPET » April 29th, 2016, 5:58 pm

The general threshold seems to be if it's consistent with the comp plan or not. So my guess is that either the comp plan was less supportive of high density back then, or staff is more willing to say that higher density is supported by the comp plan.

bapster2006
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby bapster2006 » May 2nd, 2016, 9:35 am

Thanks for the info Peter. That makes sense.

The HPC is looking to approve both the demolition of existing buildings and construction of the 40-story tower tomorrow.

m b p
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby m b p » May 2nd, 2016, 2:19 pm

Working on the model for the updated version...

Image

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blindeke
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby blindeke » May 3rd, 2016, 6:39 am

Hey would anyone here be willing or able to write a post on this project for streets.mn? I think it'd be a great topic and we could use a bit of conversation on this, how it relates to city goals or fits or doesn't fit downtown.

I'd love it! Let me know if you'd like a hand.

-Bill Lindeke

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby DanB » May 3rd, 2016, 8:06 pm

HPC voted to approve demolition with the added condition that the St. Anthony Commercial Club building be made available for relocation or partial reuse for a period of six months. The last condition was added at the developer's suggestion after motions to straight up deny and approve demolition both failed with a tie.

The certificate to appropriateness for the tower was denied though with everyone on the committee saying they loved the building but thought it was in the wrong place.

Roughly 20ish people spoke with it being a fairly even split for and against most common problems being height and setting a precedent for ignoring the historical guidelines. One person expressed concern about whether the building would use bird safe glass and be harmful to migratory birds. Hearing lasted roughly 3 hours.

acs
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby acs » May 3rd, 2016, 8:35 pm


grant1simons2
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby grant1simons2 » May 3rd, 2016, 9:18 pm

And it will be appealed

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby acs » May 3rd, 2016, 9:23 pm

And it will be appealed
Source on that? I'm sure it would be successful, but the alternate route is they revise the design.

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby grant1simons2 » May 3rd, 2016, 9:26 pm

Bob Lux is pretty determined on this. It's a step that I could see him taking.

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Nathan
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby Nathan » May 3rd, 2016, 9:28 pm

When was the last time the city went along with the hpc during an appeal by the developer? Honestly wondering. I'm pretty sure this will Walz right through.

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby DanB » May 3rd, 2016, 9:58 pm

Does the hpc get appealed to zoning and planning committee or straight to city council? Not that an appeal would have much trouble either way. Also I don't see how they could revise the design and get it past the hpc without a massive height reduction/changing it to a mid-rise like the Nye's project there weren't really any suggestions by committee members on how to make it better so much as they said it "didn't belong there".

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby EOst » May 4th, 2016, 5:41 am

In fairness to the HPC, according to the historic district guidelines which have been in place for decades, it really doesn't belong here at this height. I think the HPC had to deny this just on precedent grounds alone.

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Nathan
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby Nathan » May 4th, 2016, 6:40 am

Yeah I'm totally glad the hpc denied it, I totally hope the city approves it. Then everyone does their job correctly.

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby min-chi-cbus » May 4th, 2016, 6:47 am

In fairness to the HPC, according to the historic district guidelines which have been in place for decades, it really doesn't belong here at this height. I think the HPC had to deny this just on precedent grounds alone.
I was thinking about that too. This kind of thing wouldn't be an issue if developers made proposals where those proposals were appropriately zoned.

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby Silophant » May 4th, 2016, 7:36 am

And if the zoning code was overhauled such that any portion of desirable neighborhoods were appropriately zoned for the buildings developers want to build, and people want to live in, maybe they would.

As it is, the only part of Minneapolis zoned for a building higher than six stories is (parts of) downtown, and even a big chunk of that is limited to ten stories.
Joey Senkyr
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EOst
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby EOst » May 4th, 2016, 8:11 am

Yeah I'm totally glad the hpc denied it, I totally hope the city approves it. Then everyone does their job correctly.
Agreed... but only because this is an edge case, right on the edge of the district. I know a lot of people here don't believe in historic preservation generally, but if we're going to have them, we should do them right.
And if the zoning code was overhauled such that any portion of desirable neighborhoods were appropriately zoned for the buildings developers want to build, and people want to live in, maybe they would.
Sorry, but that's BS. We are a wealthy enough and healthy enough to say "no" to developers sometimes when there are other compelling reasons.

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby Silophant » May 4th, 2016, 8:47 am

Yeah, I phrased that really badly. I didn't mean that the entirety of Old St. Anthony should be zoned for towers.

I was just pointing out that min-chi-cbus's desire for developers to propose projects in properly zoned areas is impossible, because there are next to no properly zoned areas for anything above 4 stories outside the downtown core, and none at all for above six. For example, this up-and-coming district is all C3, C3A, and R5, allowing nothing above 4-story buildings by right. If Lux could have proposed this a couple blocks away without having to fight for a variance at all, maybe he would have, but if he has to get a variance anyway, why not go for the most desirable, though historically protected, lot?
Joey Senkyr
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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby RailBaronYarr » May 4th, 2016, 8:53 am

I have yet to see compelling evidence that buildings taller than 4 stories (yes, I'm aware the historic district limits to 8) ruin the ability of people to enjoy existing historic buildings, let alone ruin anyone's lives int he general sense the way we hear during zoning fights. Our exact problem is that we're wealthy and healthy enough to care about trivial stuff like a building being out of scale to its neighbor or what the siding facing the street looks like or if someone might peer out their window at your kids playing catch in the back yard.

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Re: Alatus St. Anthony Tower (Washburn-McReavy Site)

Postby EOst » May 4th, 2016, 9:04 am

If Lux could have proposed this a couple blocks away without having to fight for a variance at all, maybe he would have, but if he has to get a variance anyway, why not go for the most desirable, though historically protected, lot?
That's certainly fair. The current system is probably the worst of both worlds.
I have yet to see compelling evidence that buildings taller than 4 stories (yes, I'm aware the historic district limits to 8) ruin the ability of people to enjoy existing historic buildings, let alone ruin anyone's lives int he general sense the way we hear during zoning fights. Our exact problem is that we're wealthy and healthy enough to care about trivial stuff like a building being out of scale to its neighbor or what the siding facing the street looks like or if someone might peer out their window at your kids playing catch in the back yard.
The entire purpose of a historic district is to create a consistent aesthetic feeling. If all we wanted to do was to preserve historic buildings, they could be designated individually. But we have historic districts because we recognize that the value of an area derives not just from individual buildings, but from the collective effect of a district.

A neighborhood of mixed historic buildings and high-rises can be a great neighborhood, no one disputes that. But it's a fundamentally different kind of neighborhood than the ones historic districts are meant to create. An obvious example of this is the Stevens Square district; individually the contributing buildings there are just old brick boxes with cornices, like hundreds of others in the city, but together they're a visually and tonally coherent neighborhood. Building a 40-story tower on the Volunteers of America site, for example, would irrevocably change that.


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