Uptown - LynLake - The Wedge - News & General

[TommyT]

Walking past Floyd's today I noticed a building permit in the window of the retail bay next door on Lake. Montgomery Brinkman it said on it, I'm guessing that's who's doing th buildout from their website.

[Anondson]

Mager's and Quinn building sold. $4.65 million.

http://m.bizjournals.com/twincities/mor ... 753&r=full

[twincitizen]

To Elion Partners, same owner as Suburban World Theater. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried.

[twincitizen]

Random thought nugget: Could the McDonalds property be more "in play" than we think?

The traditional line of thinking is that McDonalds is so wealthy and so profitable, that they would never consider selling out. They don't need the money gained by cashing in, and a busy location such as this is so profitable that they wouldn't consider abandoning it.

However, this location is independently owned & operated. This could be the rare situation where the land is so incredibly valuable that it actually outweighs its value as a McDonalds, which is clearly very difficult to do.

I have to wonder what percentage of their business is done through the drive-thru vs. in store, considering the dense urban setting, transit hub, etc. Would they consider opening a location in a mixed-use development without a drive-thru? If so, I have to believe that the entire property is in play for redevelopment, and not just the eastern parking lot parcel, as some of us have earlier speculated.

Heck, this independent franchisee could simply choose to retire and cash out, not caring if a McDonalds re-opended in the area. It could just come down to when his franchise agreement is up, and it's time to sell out. Developers would be lined up a block deep to have a chance at this piece of land. This would be another great site to add to the list of contenders for office/hotel space. After the development of Mozaic East, this actually becomes the most logical site for the next office building in Uptown, with the Acme/PP block close behind.

[Wedgeguy]

^^^^^^^
I have to agree with you 100%. As the value of that piece of real estate continues to increase the tax burden on the property will continue to go up and up. With Walkway, Mosaic and M2, and the work on Calhoun Square the real estate valuation will continue to climb. But the number of customers will not go up enough to support the tax burden, let alone the potential profit that could be made otherwise. I'll agree if there is development on the site it will be the whole site and not just the east end. If you are going to take away your parking, you just as well become part of a new development and have a store that truly fits the area better than to keep an ill arranged building with all of it's flawed designs. It was design as a drive thru and not a real sit down place to eat design. Urban fast food can survive without a drive thru. With the increased number of people coming to Uptown in the future I can see them doing very well once they get a more efficient design and an interior that people would want to come and sit down in.

[mulad]

On one hand, I'm not so sure the increasing property value will make much difference here. Land value on that block is about $2 million per acre. The McDonald's building itself is assessed at $70,000, while the 0.64 acres of land is $1,255,000 -- The building is already only 5% of the total value (compared to 81 to 87% for other buildings/parcels on the same block).

The McDonald's owner is set to pay $55k in property taxes this year, plus another $12k in special assessments, but that's just average for the block (a bit below, actually). If the McDonalds owner is already able to handle the payments, I'm not sure the relatively slow uptick in land values will matter much. I have zero historical or predictive future data to draw on, though -- maybe land has gotten valuable more quickly here, but I'm not so sure.

A pure land value tax or some other property tax structure more heavily weighted to land value would provide a much stronger financial incentive here. If this block was converted to land value tax and the tax rates were tuned to get the same income from the block, the taxes on the McDonald's property would be 2.6x as high as they are now, while the other properties on the block would see their taxes go down an average of 34%. I'm not sure what the impact would be on a citywide scale, though.

[gpete]

This parcel is owned by Franchise Realty Interstate, which I think is the land holding arm of McD's. McD's typically owns the parcel of land on which their franchises are located. The franchisee then pays rent to McD's.

So I would guess that you need to convince someone in the Franchise Realty Interstate corporate office to sell the land. I don't think the franchisee has full power over this parcel.

[FISHMANPET]

That is a ridiculous ratio of value of land to building. Land tax now!

[MNdible]

It's also ridiculous that the building is assessed at only $70,000.

[thatchio]

Can't speak to this specific case, but it isn't always about the value of the real estate. The value of a business can greatly exceed the value of the real estate and certain business types, such as those with limited geographies they can operate within, may be unwilling to sell and lose on-going business income. So in the case of a fast food place with a drive thru that is located in a Pedestrian Overlay District, which prohibits the establishments of fast food uses in new buildings or new drive thrus, there is little incentive to sell their land unless they could relocate to a nearby, lower value parcel and still make a similar return on investment. There are other ways it could make sense too, but I wouldn't discount the value of a drive thru in an area of limited competition. In this case, finding a solution where they could maintain their drive thru and be a part of a mixed-use building is probably a more likely scenario than them simply packing up and leaving.

[Wedgeguy]

Saw a new sign on 2909 Bryant S for Soo Visual Arts Center. Looks like they have made the move off of Lyndale. It must be on one of the upper floor as the main floors has been spoken for.

[twincitizen]

http://www.startribune.com/streetscapes ... 303081591/

[Anondson]

I thought there was a general thread for the Midtown Greenway, couldn't find one but maybe there should be. Anyway, found this.

Should the Midtown Greenway add goats?

https://transitionpastor.wordpress.com/ ... way-needs/

[bapster2006]

Midtown greenway Minneapolis 5-28-15 by Matt Bappe, on Flickr

[seamonster]

Great shot, Bapster.

[bapster2006]

Thank you. I was waiting for construction to be done and the leaves to come out. I also took "before" shots of looking southeast over Planned Parenthood and Cheapo because I can see comparing those two photos in five years.

[min-chi-cbus]

Midtown greenway Minneapolis 5-28-15 by Matt Bappe, on Flickr

That photo implies that the urban fabric looks like that from the foreground to the background......nice!

[seamonster]

I thought there was a general thread for the Midtown Greenway, couldn't find one but maybe there should be. Anyway, found this.

Should the Midtown Greenway add goats?

https://transitionpastor.wordpress.com/ ... way-needs/

Last fall, I was in San Francisco visiting family (Contra Costa county, to be fair - between Berkeley and Walnut Creek) and I saw this in action! These trucks would bring in a herd of a hundred goats or so, let them graze on a fenced hillside for a day or two, round them up and bring them to a new location.

This would not work well for the Midtown Greenway, I' afraid. I'm amused by the idea--intrigued even, but people are just no damn good. This would not end well for the goats.

[tab]

That's a great photo Bapster!
The sidewalk in front (south) of this line of buildings is not handicap accessible. In order to travel along the promenade between Flux and the Lander/Sherman Condo project, someone in a wheelchair must either jump a 6-inch curb every block, or travel a block out of the way every block. Perhaps ADA rules don't apply because this 5-block stretch of sidewalk is all on private land. Then again, ADA does require no-step routes to entrances of buildings. Should ADA requirements apply to this sidewalk?

[Wedgeguy]

That's a great photo Bapster!
The sidewalk in front (south) of this line of buildings is not handicap accessible. In order to travel along the promenade between Flux and the Lander/Sherman Condo project, someone in a wheelchair must either jump a 6-inch curb every block, or travel a block out of the way every block. Perhaps ADA rules don't apply because this 5-block stretch of sidewalk is all on private land. Then again, ADA does require no-step routes to entrances of buildings. Should ADA requirements apply to this sidewalk?

There are not curb cut as this is like a private sidewalk. You do not have to provide curb cuts to get up to your house. The curb cuts are require at intersections. Again while the promenade is open for use by the public. It is built on private land and not public right of way like most sidewalks in front of your home. The city required them to built this as part of the requirement for approval of construction of their buildings. Another reason they probably did not put curb cuts in was to keep bicyclist off these sidewalks. They did not want bike riding out in front of car where cars would not expect bike to come out from. We all know that all bikers stop before riding across the street. More like they blow thru stop signs with out even looking for on coming traffic.