St. Louis Park - General Topics

[Anondson]

Duke puts West End and adjacent property up for sale. Wants to be a pure industrial developer, not office and residential.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -park.html

[go4guy]

*I think they just want to get out of residential and hotels. They are still looking to do the office development, but wants to focus mainly on industrial.

[min-chi-cbus]

Duke puts West End and adjacent property up for sale. Wants to be a pure industrial developer, not office and residential.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -park.html

In a quasi-related note, I can't believe Josh Budish is the regional VP for Duke. He's my age and went to my high school and I don't ever recall him being a very serious student....at all. Maybe college changed him, or maybe he has an incredible network of connections? Good for him though!

[Azel]

Seems like Duke is sort of playing it both ways, saying they plan to be a pure industrial, but yet not willing to give up on the office development opportunity at 100. Likely that if somebody comes by with a big-enough offer, Duke would sell the whole site - including the office development land.

[Anondson]

Demolition started.


Demolition. by xeoth, on Flickr

[seanrichardryan]

I could have used all that glass block. :/

[Anondson]

West End master plan getting revised to bring more housing and less office. 400 new apartment units?

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... tml?r=full

Looks like Duke has been having trouble landing office tenants, switching to more residential here fits the market demand it seems.

[Anondson]

Also, I still wish Golden Valley would allow a direct linking of 16th to the HOV lane and the frontage road under TH 100.

Wood stick apartment, okay... Hope the city can get something a bit more than the blah we've come to anticipate.

[mamundsen]

I have seen at least one plan that does have that connection. It was years ago when the hwy 100 frontage had 1M sq ft of office space planned. There were also two more parking ramps larger than the one that was built as part of the West End.

[twincitizen]

http://media.bizj.us/view/img/3484691/w ... ptplan.jpg

Unless they're planning annexation, the southern apartment building (just north of the linear park) would actually span the border of St. Louis Park and Golden Valley. I'm not sure how that works...

http://gis.hennepin.us/property/map/def ... 2924310003

And yes, the lack of a 16th Street connection is troubling, mostly because it harms the ability to build a legible transit route. You'd think if they built that last stretch of 16th Street, they'd actually be able to eliminate the dead-end 394 frontage road between 100 and Park Place.

[mamundsen]

I was wondering if there would be a revised map of the whole area. I wonder why they don't label the buildings on the Olive Garden site as residential?

This area is definitely different than it was 10 years ago!

[David Greene]

they'd actually be able to eliminate the dead-end 394 frontage road between 100 and Park Place.

That thing is infuriating!

[seanrichardryan]

I find the proposed linear park to be confusing. It's labeled as connecting Golden Valley, but really, its showcasing a freeway wall.

[illman00]

Why is south tyrol and the other lots not part of slp anyway?

[Anondson]

St. Louis Park might be building an outdoor refrigerated ice rink.

http://sailor.mnsun.com/2014/08/27/st-l ... -ice-rink/

Youth hockey is still a big thing.

[Anondson]

The city released its draft of proposed south side of Excelsior Blvd guidelines, the studied area generally stretched from the east side of Miracle Mile to France Ave.

[link to 14-page .pdf] http://www.stlouispark.org/webfiles/fil ... update.pdf

The study are is a commercial strip with no separation from single family homes on the rear. Lots of stuff, but some big take aways are the suggestions to build taller along Excelsior to match the heights on the north side, but build parking on the rear with mid-block pedestrian cuts. The parking on the rear will soften the impact of the heights on the homes.

There will be another meeting to get more input on Sept 16th, 6–8pm in council chambers.

[David Greene]

This rekindled something I've been thinking about for a while.

We talk in derogatory terms about stroads and Excelsior Blvd could be considered one. In fact when Excelsior and Grand went up I thought of it as a stroad before I even knew the term existed. However, it was originally a proper road. The development and increasing density came later. Is "stroad" really the right label for it? It seems to me SLP is making an honest effort to put density along this stretch

What is the most helpful way to turn a "road" into a "street?" Is that even possible? If not, how do we avoid the worst of stroadiness?

[mattaudio]

The first way to prevent stroadiness is to stop subsidizing low-density sprawl. This is how most of our metro stroads came to be, since the countryside around them was quickly swallowed up into a sprawlscape and old country roads became stroads. Having more of an urban/rural dichotomy would slow this progression, and ensure that existing horizontal growth is incremental and dense.

For existing stroads, whether urban like Excelsior or suburban, a boulevard conversion is a great plan. http://stroadtoboulevard.tumblr.com/

[Wedgeguy]

One has to remember that when you make things denser, you are also bring with it more car, trucks and buses that support more people and commerce in even the established area of the inner burbs. Going dense does not mean you have less issues, You just have more issues in a more compact area.

[mattaudio]

less car per capita, less car per dollar of commerce. that's the point.