(via Pioneer Press) Lowertown may see future streetscape improvements to provide more patio seating space for restaurants adjacent to Mears Park.
At the urging of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, Sixth Street in the city’s Lowertown neighborhood could be widened from Sibley to Wacouta streets to accommodate sidewalk seating.
One of the reader comments suggests on street bike parking.
Could changes be on the way for Snelling Ave, including the quasi-freeway between Hamline University and the State Fair?
MnDOT has published a draft report (pdf) of corridor recommendations for Snelling Ave between Midway Ave and Selby Ave.
UrbanMSP forum user @mnmike noticed this at F-C today:
Hot Twin Cities apartment market shows signs of cooling off
Call it a warning signal about the state of an apartment market that has stood out in an otherwise sluggish real estate development scene. In some corners of downtown Minneapolis, construction cranes seem to be everywhere. Finance & Commerce is tracking more than 4,000 apartments under construction within the city limits of Minneapolis and more than 16,000 units either under construction or proposed across the Twin Cities.
But history suggests the game is about to change. Developers will struggle to land financing and some planned projects will be canceled. Meanwhile, other developers will scramble to fill new projects as demand slows for units with rents of $2 or more per square foot, which would translate into $2,000 per month for a 1,000-square-foot unit.
Read more at F-C
Want to sound off? Head on over to the thread.
According to the plan laid out by Ford, the job of tearing down buildings would begin in May. It would be followed by the breaking up of floors, removal of utility lines and rail tracks, and finally grading and seeding of the site for future development.
To discuss redevelopment of this site, visit the Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant site thread.
@LRV Op Dude posted another great video of construction.
Check out his Youtube channel for 99+ other videos of Twin Cities transit.
For discussion about the progress of Minnesota’s second light rail line, head on over to the METRO Green Line thread in the forums.
Via @mulad in the transportation forum…
Before 2012 draws to a close, we want to share one more update about Zip Rail.
Zip Rail Feasibility Study Kicks-Off
On November 13, a kick-off meeting was held for the Rochester-Twin Cities Passenger Rail Corridor Investment Plan, also known as the Zip Rail feasibility study. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce the consultant team conducting the study, Parsons Brinckerhoff, and provide a project overview, including project goals, scope, process and schedule, as well as public involvement opportunities.There will be multiple ways for interested members of the public to stay in touch with the study. In addition to updates like these and in the media, there will be a study-specfic newsletter, website and social media. We will keep you informed about these different resources as they become available.
Public meetings also will be held throughout the course of the study to seek input, provide updates, and correspond with key milestones in the planning/engineering and environmental process. Each series of meetings will be held in multiple locations around the area. The first round of public meetings will occur early in 2013. We will notify you well in advance of the meetings so that you have time to make arrangements to attend.
Spread the Word
We saw a lot of new support for Zip Rail in 2012. You can play a valuable part by getting your organization to adopt a letter of support or by sharing our information. Start by forwarding this message on to your friends, family and neighbors. You can also engage with us via Facebook and Twitter.All of our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season.
Sincerely,
Zip Rail
To discuss Zip Rail and other proposals to connect Rochester via high speed rail, visit the Zip Rail thread.
Hey gang! We’ve got some news this week after a bit of a lull.
Most notably, an architect was selected for the new Vikings stadium! It was announced that HKS out of Dallas would be designing the billion dollar project. There are some cool conceptual renderings over on the website for the Downtown Journal, though they’re definitely very preliminary. There was quite a bit of discussion on the forum (the Vikings stadium thread is our largest) about the different concepts and where the design could be headed.
Cowboy Slim’s in Uptown closed this weekend, hopefully signaling that the CityWalk project will be moving forward in the near future. We’re almost running out of surface parking in Uptown! Almost. If it does get built, this building will do quite a bit to add another block to the density we’re getting over there. Further east in Uptown, renderings were released for the proposed Goodwill at Lake and Lyndale.
Image from Southwest Journal
A sharp-looking Goodwill, to be sure, and the added density is a plus. But the surface parking lot raised some concerns about land-use and traffic patterns among some posters, myself included.
Over in the University of Minnesota area, the long-vacant site of the former Andrew Riverside Presbyterian Church quickly materialized into a project and broke ground. The Elysian is another mid-rise, high-price point apartment building being marketed to students. It’s being developed by CPM, the same company with holdings where the Stadium Village Arby’s sits now. Also over at the U, Mercil’s Campus Auto Repair was demolished last week to make way for another apartment building, The Station on Washington.
Image from poster FISHMANPET
The Station on Washington is an Opus project. Opus just wrapped up Stadium Village Flats down the street. Lots of development continues to go up in and around the University of Minnesota. Gotta be getting close to the limit of what that submarket can take!
Over in St. Paul, a large residential project was announced at the corner of Selby and Snelling, a few blocks north of Macalester College. Ryan Companies will be building this one. Like the a current Ryan project in Minneapolis, 222, this St. Paul project tentatively includes a grocery store and several hundred units.
Hey folks, hope everyone had a good week. Especially after the back to back wins by the Gophers and Vikings!
We don’t have a huge amount of news from the past week. I think everyone’s waiting to see if the Nicollet Residences ends up breaking ground in the next few weeks, which was hinted at in the articles after they secured their financing. There also appears to be very utility work occurring around the site of the upcoming apartment tower project in Loring Park, which is still unnamed. Some temporary utility poles have been popping up around that half-block parking lot between Lasalle Avenue and Spruce Place on 14th Street.
The one big piece of news that we did get this week was over in the North Loop, where Hines broke ground on the first part of their Dock Street Apartments project, which will fill in a parking lot on Washington Avenue. Also, in South Minneapolis, a new project was announced that would fill in the remaining empty corner of Portland and Franklin. The other three corners have been recently redeveloped.
There’s not much else to report on, though I do wish we had some more pictures of projects that are underway. If you regularly take construction photos around the cities, be sure to upload them to the forum to help other folks get a look at projects they can’t see in person!
