urbanMSP

Cali Owings wrote on it for Finance and Commerce's Transit Talk column... Unlocked article!

http://finance-commerce.com/transit/201 ... um=twitter

The new sidewalks and crosswalks seem poorly designed and done. Super tight in some sections and uneven in others. Each corner uses a different "design", there is no balance.

On a separate note I noticed 3 new stores. Kiddywampus, Mill City Sound (eghhhhhh), and Baby Grand.

The reason why I groan at the Mill City Sound store, if it's not already obvious, is because their sign is literally a silhouette of downtown Minneapolis. And its a record store! Which would be amazing in the mill district..

FYI kiddywampus has been there for over a year (it took over the old Boston Garden location), Mill City for almost a year, and Baby Grand for several years.

Hmm. Then I guess I haven't been in downtown Hopkins for a while..

Lindee's Saloon on Cambridge has been vacant for a short while. Border Foods, which owns the adjacent Taco Bell is proposing to demolish Lindee's and demolish the current Taco Bell and build a revamped Taco Bell. The old space was awkward, had little parking. The new is straight froward and tons and tons of parking. I hope the city considers this to functionally be in the Blake Corridor and poke Border Foods for bike accommodations.

No word on what will become of the old Taco Bell property after demolition. It's not often property adjacent to the creek becomes available, but I hope the watershed district has their eye on it. They had been acquiring properties along this stretch of Hopkins and SLP to improve runoff and erosion.

Anyway, the info about Border Foods is in this week's Zoning and Planning Commission agenda.

Apartments nextdoor to the townhomes sold to Doran for $12.8 million.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... ments.html

Curry and Noodles on 8th and Mainstreet is being replaced by a new restaurant called Tibetan Corner.

Lindee's Saloon demolition starting. Accident happened on day one.

https://twitter.com/HopkinsPolice/statu ... 2315482116

What's going in there?

I remember when that place was an Embers. My folks used to take us there for breakfast.

Border Foods bought it to relocate their Taco Bell to. No word what they will do with the vacated Taco Bell next to the creek yet. New one will get a far better drive through, an outdoor patio with fireplace, better storm water management even though it will have a massive number of parking spaces. They are adding a small handful of bike parking spaces next to the building.

One bit of interest is that the new restaurant building is going to be built as a prefab and assembled onsite in about a day.

Kind of a bummer to lose something unique for a chain. But the ratty dilapidated old style Taco Bell had a horribly dangerous drivethru and I'm glad to see it going.

As things seem to cycle maybe we can see the old building filled with an immigrant restaurant.

Looking at the latest agenda packet for the city Zoning and Planning Commission, Kelly Doran has brought a proposal for a 245-unit apartment at 8th and Excelsior. Diagonally across from the proposed Hopkins Downtown LRT.

This is currently occupied the the Johnson building, a bland warehouse filling the entire block. With this the city will vacate the remnant of 2nd Street South, Kelly Doran will purchase the vacated land for his proposal, 2nd Street South is pretty much entirely used for parking today. The city plan for 2nd Street South foresaw this and had the land the street was on zoned Multi Use anyway.

Below ground parking area, at grade parking area, five stories of apartments above parking (six total stories). 265 Below ground parking for residents, 190 at-grade parking for the public (especially for the LRT). Patio/pool for residents on second floor along Ninth Avenue. Fitness center + spa, fire pits, grilling kitchens, community entertainment rooms, business center and pet spa. 1–,2–, and 3– bedrooms but total mix is not said.

Some walk up residential entrances along the Artery side (Eighth Avenue)

Warehouse to be razed in November/December, construction start in spring.

The submitted drawings are rather ... um, preliminary ... in design. I had hoped the Eight and Excelsior corner was a bit more significant in design, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

[Link to the current agenda packet] http://www.hopkinsmn.com/boards/zpc/pdf ... packet.pdf

Yikes on the drawings. But, this is more density in Hopkins which is very good. Also it will take out some parking along Excelsior Blvd.

I know this forum snipes at design when we are given sometimes very early sketches, and even decent drawings at times don't do a great job representing the final product.

But this is intended to be a very special corner to draw people up Eight towards Mainstreet. I want the density in downtown Hopkins something fierce and this delivers some of that. Possibly the final ARTery design overcomes the plainness this seems to offer and the entire street presence is still great. I'm not expecting all sides be special, I want just that corner at 8th and Excelsior across from the station, to be something more to draw the eye.

The submitted drawings are rather ... um, preliminary ... in design. I had hoped the Eight and Excelsior corner was a bit more significant in design, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

Hopkins deserves much, much better than this. Frankly, I'd rather the land stay vacant for a few more years than build this apartment warehouse.

http://www.hopkinsmn.com/boards/zpc/pdf ... packet.pdf

Really, I am excited to see a little more density in downtown Hopkins...

...But is it wrong that I found the single family home variances more interesting? Maybe it's because my kids play with the Polston kids.

Below ground parking area, at grade parking area, five stories of apartments above parking (six total stories). 265 Below ground parking for residents, 190 at-grade parking for the public (especially for the LRT). Patio/pool for residents on second floor along Ninth Avenue. Fitness center + spa, fire pits, grilling kitchens, community entertainment rooms, business center and pet spa. 1–,2–, and 3– bedrooms but total mix is not said.

So, let me get this straight. Parking for the Downtown Hopkins LRT station is going to be across Excelsior from the actual station?

This sounds excellent. But they're wasting all that foot traffic on residential? If people are having to walk across Excelsior and through a building to get to their cars, wouldn't it be smart to at least put some small shops in their path? Maybe a deli that does grab-and-go dinners or a dry cleaner or some other business that would appeal to someone on their way to or from work.

Or did I miss something in the plans?

There is no retail in the Doran proposal. There will be a bike station, with repair tools, vending machine with bike parts, charging stations, seats to rest. It is on the cycle track linking the Lake Minnetonka bike trail and the Minnesota Bluffs trail and the Cedar Lake trail.

The proposal has a name, btw. "The Moline". I like this nod to history.

Gallery Flats will has some retail spaces that haven't filled in along 8th, just across the street so a case could be made more retail isn't exactly called for yet. And even if this corner makes sense for retail Hopkins has an institutional desire to not do anything that would compete against the retail along Mainstreet, no matter how much it makes sense in a specific context.

I got around to watching the video of the Z&P hearing for this. The Hopkins postmaster voiced a heavy worry that vacating 2nd would cause his employees to lose their free parking spaces. The city staff response was that it made little financial sense to keep the free parking, and like other Hopkins businesses, they post office employees are free to pay for parking permits in the city parking ramp where there are spaces.

Maybe any new neighbor buildings can be called "The Minneapolis" to go next to "The Moline."

The Hopkins and Saint Louis Park city councils are to be voting in a few days on a proposed set of annexations to tidy up some border zigzagging that was getting in the way of the Japs-Olson plant expansion. The final border will end up looking a bit stranger but it follows property lines in ways that fit existing ownerships better. Here is the a capture of the Hopkins city council packet's included map of the existing and proposed borders.

Hopkins-SLP Annexations by Eric Anondson, on Flickr

I expect this means the plant will be added on to in coming months. With the border changes the new Hopkins land will be guided and zoned Business Park, and the landowners are fine with this.

Both city councils have approved the annexations, SLP yesterday and Hopkins tonight. It now goes before a judge. City and townships swapping borders happen rather regularly, but city-city border swaps are seemingly extremely unusual. Can anyone think of the last time two cities changed borders like this?