urbanMSP

Well articulated nBode. Superior one might say.

Ritz block under discussion at DMNA meeting March 20 around 7:40pm at Mill City Museum. Presentation by project staff.

Ritz block under discussion at DMNA meeting March 20 around 7:40pm at Mill City Museum. Presentation by project staff.

Do you mean April instead of March?

Yes, I don't know what month it is ha ha. Next Monday!

Ugggggh I have class. Is anyone going?

Agenda: http://www.thedmna.org/wp-content/uploa ... d-4.13.pdf

We can only hope that downtown residents tell Opus while the design is great the project lacks ambition and is the definition of mediocrity when considering how amazing of property they have to work with.

Ditto

I will most likely be able to attend tonight

I had the buildings aligned wrong in my mind. The two buildings will be parallel to third and fourth streets. So the gap between the buildings will face the library. However, the space between the buildings will be mostly for driving out onto Marquette. Phase 1 and phase 2 will be connected by a skyway. Phase 1 will be designed for a future skyway across Nicollet to the library. And of course there will be a skyway to the new Xcel HQ. No Skyway level retail. Construction to begin 3rd quarter and get ahead of United's Nicollet hotel block apartments.

They must've switched orientation. I saw that too!

You are right. I wasn't wrong after all, they really did switch the orientation. Now the long side of the podium is against 4th St. I asked about that and they pointed it out so they definitely switched it.

Was there a mention of height? Document said 425 to 450 ft. That'd be big.

They only quoted 30 floors so I think 350 is a stretch.

It says in the file Opus submitted to the city 425-450

I think they got the office and the residential switched on that document. 32 floors of office and 450 feet makes sense, not residential. Also, the newer rendering we saw was down from 32 to 30 floors, so it sounds like they have confirmed that? I am not sure I like the alley splitting the buildings facing Nic...I hope it is a narrow alley. The one between the Nic on Fifth and Xcel is really wide and looks bad from the mall.

Glad that they switched orientation on this - it will make a much more compelling space aligned with the atrium of the library... the light will flow in to the library space! Really happy about this! Wish that this had a little more height for more interesting shape to the structure... too many flat rectangles...

Really? I counted the floors and still got 32........

Oh man, my fingers are crossed fervently about this one. I really really hope that switching the towers will better address the library. I emailed Jacob Frey about it maybe a month ago. Are there plans/renderings out yet?? I recognize that an alley here isn't ideal, but it could work out to be a (yeah, I know) woonerf-like space facing Nicollet, with public space for a restaurant's seating, etc. and then have traffic only route to Marquette.

Ah, so that's how they got around the conflicting demands of only wanting 12ksf of retail but also being required to have 60% of the Nicollet frontage as retail. That works, I suppose.