Uptown - LynLake - The Wedge - News & General

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Multimodal
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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby Multimodal » January 2nd, 2018, 11:00 pm

RailBaronYarr, those are identical links. Did you mean this for the second link?

http://www.southwestjournal.com/voices/ ... r-streets/

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby UrsusUrbanicus » January 3rd, 2018, 3:03 am

I bet even their subscription base will lose interest. The first several dozen articles about how Minneapolis is going to the dogs because of bike lanes and new apartments were probably real interesting for suburbanites to read at the breakfast table but eventually they'll stop caring. The perils of chasing clicks.
BINGO. When my folks came up to visit for the holidays, they asked me about the significant changes at Lyndale and Franklin. In the course of bringing them up to date, I noted the neighborhood opposition that had initially delayed the Theatre Garage project. Mom was incredulous -- "Don't they realize that a huge, new building full of activity is going to increase their property values?" She and Dad may live in fifth-ring suburbia by choice, but they also know there's a growing demand for urban living -- and that it might as well be the real deal, for those who are actually seeking it.

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Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby Anondson » January 4th, 2018, 9:58 pm

Matt’s response was published.

http://www.startribune.com/urban-densit ... 468086923/

A personal observation about the original commentary that Matt responded to, the complaint that there is far too much traffic, and that they’ve lived there for all those 30 years. This seems a part of a wider trend among people trying to put up zoning moats to keep people out, objecting to worsening traffic. Yet when one does a simple check on traffic levels from 20-30 years back you can see that traffic in their neighborhood’s main arterials has plummeted.

Since the 1990s, Hennepin traffic is down many thousands of vehicles. I noted this to complainers about development around Southdale that driver traffic is down upwards of almost 10,000 cars per day since 2000.

There is an epidemic of claimed-longtimer residents misremembering the traffic of the near-past, one might say it is convenient.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby David Greene » January 4th, 2018, 10:39 pm

Good piece, Matt! My only quibble is the statement that six-story buildings are going up because we don't allow missing middle. I don't believe for a second that if we allowed missing middle, we'd have fewer six-story apartments. That argument just doesn't hold water and it's not going to convince anyone skeptical of development and density.

I've tried the opposite argument with the skeptical crowd. Build tall and dense so there's less pressure to build next to your door. That doesn't seem to be very effective either. People dislike change. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ok, one more quibble, also pointed out in the comments. It's apples-and-oranges to compare property values in East Calhoun with city-wide averages. Accusing people of being greedy and selfish usually doesn't get one very far. In the minds of the skeptical crowd, they very sincerely believe it's a livability issue, and they're not just using "livability" as a meaningless bludgeon. I would like to have seen a deeper exploration about how people's differing views of "livability" can be reconciled and respected in a mutually-beneficial way.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby VacantLuxuries » January 4th, 2018, 11:14 pm

I don't think we'd have fewer six story buildings in general, but developers wouldn't be playing the develop-by-variance game to squeeze as many units into the few high density zoned parcels in desirable neighborhoods if there was more of an ability to build outside of one or two major corridors.

There was a roundtable discussion Frey posted on his facebook yesterday, and Peter McLaughlin was a part of it. He described a long process of educating communities on what different densities actually mean, and how to sort of hand hold a reluctant community through changes they don't like. No 300-700 word rebuttal is going to be able to do the level of work required to change minds. I wanted to voice frustration with people who benefit from the way things are dominating the conversation about changes, I didn't necessarily set out to change his mind.

And I didn't want to even touch traffic because there's so much nostalgia fog on that issue you'll never convince anyone hung up on that to change their mind.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby David Greene » January 5th, 2018, 9:27 am

All fair points. I believe developers are going to seek variances no matter what. As we all know, our zoning code is in desperate need of updating and modernizing. It's not just re-zoning that we need. Indeed, I think that might actually be harmful in several ways without updating the code itself.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby VacantLuxuries » January 5th, 2018, 10:14 am

There's another rebuttal to the original piece that was published alongside mine that focuses specifically on the 'zoning is a pact' claim. I'm hoping some meaningful zoning reform is something we'll get out of Frey's tenure.

http://www.startribune.com/urban-densit ... 468086523/

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby David Greene » January 5th, 2018, 10:32 am

That's a nice, concise piece. The way the city conducts its Small Area Plan process certainly does lend an air of "compact" with the neighborhoods, and frankly, if residents put in hundreds of hours crafting a plan, it's not unreasonable to have some expectation that the plan will be generally followed (and I'm not saying it's not).

Some people definitely want such plans to be iron-clad law. Sometimes those desires are really cover for something else not as PC. But other times I think people sincerely think their hard work has been thrown away. Teasing out one from the other is very difficult, but I think it's worth the effort. People like to be respected and I've found that if people feel respected, it's much easier to have conversations with them about difficult things. Not everyone will agree but if people feel there's been a good, robust conversation and they've been taken seriously, it tends to blunt the pain for them if they don't get everything they want.

Now, some will say I'm just advocating for bogging down the process, and it's true that real conversation takes time. In fact it's going to take more time than usual given past actions (on all "sides"). And there will always be those who feel disrespected no matter what. Nothing we can do to help that, unfortunately.

This also means that real conversation has to happen around variances and other one-off alterations/exceptions to the plan. Honestly, some more effort in educating people about what the various pieces of zoning mean would help. I know I'd benefit from that. The city has some nice education programs for residents on various aspects of city government. Do they have one for zoning/development? Maybe we need to put some more resources into that.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby MNdible » January 5th, 2018, 10:38 am

A select few developers with the resources to fight for variances end up building most of the multifamily housing in the city, while many more choose instead to build in less-restrictive markets.


Not to pick apart the piece, but this line in particular left me scratching my head. Any evidence for this? Seems like the lion's share of multi-family housing has been built in the City of Minneapolis over the last decade.

I'd also tend to agree that the missing-middle argument (while *perhaps* true) is not likely to be terribly convincing. I'd go to David's tack of "If not here, where?"

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby FISHMANPET » January 5th, 2018, 11:07 am

As a cynic I think a lot of the arguments end up getting made to counter people who are putting forth criticism hypocritically. It's easy to say "I support development but it has to be responsible" and sound like a reasonable person, and if pressed that person might say "well we need less 6 story buildings and more duplexes and smaller apartment buildings" but then they'll end up actually opposing any change that would make it easier to build what they claim to want. So it's maybe subconsciously an argument that's made so that the other person will accidentally out themselves as a liar.

As too the "other markets" I wonder if that means other metro areas, in terms of national developers? It can also just as easily mean building 100 acres of tract homes 45 minutes outside of downtown as it does building an apartment building in Richfield.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby VacantLuxuries » January 5th, 2018, 11:09 am

That line could have benefited from clarification but I didn't want to get into the weeds on local devs. But considering how tight the market is right now, it's surprising to me that the multifamily developers who work mostly in the suburbs for the most part haven't attempted to dip into the Minneapolis market. If their company doesn't have the resources or the working relationships with the city to pursue variances, I'm saying that they probably are more likely to go outside the city borders to deal with the devil they know, even though a City of Minneapolis project could end up more lucrative.

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Uptown RR

Postby twincitizen » January 29th, 2018, 4:22 pm

Victoria’s Secret is closing the Uptown location.

Good opportunity for a joke post or tweet about all the chains closing in Uptown (as to the typical “Uptown is all chains these days” nonsense)

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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby BigIdeasGuy » January 29th, 2018, 8:23 pm

Sadly it looks like the only looks like owners don't own any of the properties located next to this building so I'm guessing it will get refilled with a different national chain and not redeveloped into something better.

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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby twincitizen » January 29th, 2018, 9:39 pm

Built 1993. What was it built as originally?

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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby Silophant » January 29th, 2018, 9:42 pm

It was a Gap before it was a Victoria's Secret, right?
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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby seanrichardryan » January 29th, 2018, 11:00 pm

Yes. The Gap replaced a building that burned in like 91'.
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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby seanrichardryan » January 29th, 2018, 11:02 pm

Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby twincitizen » January 30th, 2018, 12:20 am

Hmmm... looks like the building owner opted not to renew the lease with VS after 10 years, rather than VS closing by choice. They must think they can land an even bigger fish.

On the subject of landing bigger fish, what the hell is up with the Suburban Theater? Are they ever going to find a tenant? Holding out for 1-2 years seems reasonable, but it's been 4 years since the current owner bought it. What gives?

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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » January 30th, 2018, 2:16 pm

Hmmm... looks like the building owner opted not to renew the lease with VS after 10 years, rather than VS closing by choice. They must think they can land an even bigger fish.
My guess is that they already had a few (several?) brokers contact them with much more appealing offers than whatever VS signed onto 10 years ago. This is a prime corner so people have it on their radar. I'm with Magrino on this one: Uniqlo or bust!!

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Re: Uptown Retail & Restaurant News

Postby Nick » January 30th, 2018, 3:16 pm

[screaming] Uniqlo, Uniqlo, Uniqlo, Uniqlo,
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