Cedar Ave Corridor - Richfield

[twincitizen]

This comment on RichfieldConnect literally could have been written by a bot, about any development ever:

"Problem is, that is a hard area to access and the traffic is already horrible in that area because of the restricted access, why would you want to add more to that already too busy area?"

[mattaudio]

That's beyond ridiculous. I've *never* seen heavy traffic there. Except for maybe having to wait 20 seconds to take a left turn from the Target parking lot to Richfield Parkway on a Saturday afternoon. OMG TRAFFIC! Richfield deserves what it gets if it listens to those types of anti-place thinkers.

[MNdible]

Not that this development will meaningfully change traffic patterns, but I'd actually argue that the egress from Target is a bigger problem than you're making it out to be. My instinct is that this is caused by the roundabout, or rather by the lack of a traffic signal, at 66th and Richfield Parkway. Instead of the ebb and flow of cross traffic that a signal would cause, the roundabout allows a steady stream of traffic to move through here, making that left turn movement pretty tricky. I've seen frustrated drivers do some stupid things here.

I wonder if a right only egress at the south of the site onto 66th Street would help matters?

[mattaudio]

Or maybe a roundabout at the main Target entrance and Richfield Parkway.

The Target and Home Depot should have been flipped. Due to the 77 ramp, Target has a smaller parking lot but significantly higher demand. Too late to fix that now, but I wonder why that happened. I hope we see some good urbanism develop in the HD parking lot outlot, fronting Richfield Pkwy.

[sdho]

Or maybe a roundabout at the main Target entrance and Richfield Parkway.

Small roundabout at 65th/Target entrance would probably work best. But this seems to be a very limited issue, and should actually be getting better due to the connection to the north (if you're headed to EB Crosstown, or either direction on Cedar, you can use the Bloomington-Crosstown entrance). In any case, I don't think a couple hundred new residential units will make or break this peak-hour weekend issue.

[sdho]

In today's Sun-Current (not online yet), Richfield City Council chooses developer for Cedar Point housing site (between 16th Ave and 17th/Richfield Pkwy, 63rd to 65th Sts). Boisclair Corporation is the developer, and this is their preliminary plan:



Looks pretty nice to me. I particularly like the mix of housing, the internal (mostly underground) parking, and the great frontage on 16th Ave.

[HiawathaGuy]

I'm really excited about this! Hopefully this will allow for the (always planned) restaurant to finally fill that SE corner of the Target/Home Depot lot, near the TCF Bank and Chipotle, at the top of the 77 off-ramp & 66th. Something not fast food would be ideal.

[twincitizen]

I feel like Ryan Cos has pretty much forgotten that outlot exists next to Chipotle. There are still vacancies in the existing Cedar Point retail buildings. The existence of Caribou, Chipotle, Papa Murphy's, Subway, and Noodles makes it feel a lot fuller than it is. I'd estimate it's maybe 80% full at most.

Companies are hesitant to open there due to half of the "trade area" circle being runway. It's coming along though...

We'll see how this residential development pans out (like if it actually gets built in a reasonable timeframe). The developer has some heavy lifting ahead, with all of the properties along 16th Ave that still need to be acquired.

[sdho]

I'm really excited about this! Hopefully this will allow for the (always planned) restaurant to finally fill that SE corner of the Target/Home Depot lot, near the TCF Bank and Chipotle, at the top of the 77 off-ramp & 66th. Something not fast food would be ideal.

When developers were arguing to allow a McDonald's just south of this planned housing development -- and it was clear an underlying reason was a desire for more sit-down eating in the area, not just fast food -- they brought up this undeveloped pad as a promise of a sit-down restaurant to come.

I really don't get it, though. If I want to establish a nice, new sitdown restaurant, do I really want it to be on a freeway off-ramp, across the highway from a MnDOT garage and airport? I'd much rather build it two blocks west, where the McDonald's was proposed. (Sit-down wouldn't work with the existing PUD either, which calls for office space there.)

[sdho]

Anderson Companies presented a plan to Richfield Council, HRA, and Planning Commission on September 22nd for the couple of blocks of mostly HRA-owned parcels between 17th and Old Cedar Aves, and 66th to 68th Sts. The city's vision was creating a more direct continuation of Richfield Parkway to the north.

This is all very preliminary -- at this point, just to gauge support. Council and HRA members suggested some changes, but reception was generally positive. Two plans were shown -- one with Richfield Parkway at a sharper angle and slightly more units. This layout with 300 units and a gentler curve was more popular.

The developer intends to make some changes from what's shown, including possible reduction of surface parking and more explicit designs as to how to integrate the Lake Nokomis-MInnesota River Trail (formerly Intercity Trail).



https://imgur.com/RmAmcfB

[mattaudio]

My initial feedback after 30 seconds of studying this:
- Having two streets immediately adjacent for nearly a block (17th Ave and Richfield Pkwy) is a waste of space.
- Having no grid connectivity at 67th St is a mistake.
- Retention ponds? This is a dense urban development, not Woodbury. Let's make better use of that space.

[Mikey]

On the other hand, at least the buildings front the street with the parking lots behind, and it looks like they'll allow on street parking too. If those houses along the west side of 17th aren't long for this world (which seems likely) then 17th can disappear north of 67th.

That being said, 67th should connect through.

[sdho]

67th is already not connected, so I suspect they're just keeping the existing level of access. The issue of auto access did not come up for 67th, but they did discuss adding a curb ramp to the back side of Richfield Pkwy there so people can walk or bike onto the new trail to go up to Target.

As for the stub of 17th: I expressed concern about that at the meeting. 2-3 of the existing homes may be purchased for another project (that would face 66th). The remaining homes could probably be served by a narrow half-street. Simply wiping out 17th and putting the driveways all the way to Richfield Pkwy would create more conflict points on the regional trail, and force the residents to exit onto a fairly busy street.

As for the drainage ponds: I believe it's a regulatory requirement of the city or the watershed district (Minnehaha), because they're increasing impervious surface. Not sure of the details on that. I agree they look suburban/exurban, but the water has to go somewhere. However, the developer did discuss renting land from MnDOT adjacent to the 66th/Cedar ramps to serve the purpose instead.

[twincitizen]

Cedar Point Commons (and adjacent vacant land) sold: http://www.startribune.com/hempel-buys- ... 364301481/

[mattaudio]

Maybe they can carve out a new outlot facing Home Depot. There's NEVER demand for more than 1/3 of Home Depot's parking lot... and considering it's deeper than Target's shitshow of a parking lot (HD and Target should have been flipped in the site plan). It would provide an opportunity for more apartments fronting Richfield Parkway near the new curve.

[twincitizen]

Home Depot and Target both own their properties, so it's not too likely. But you're right, the Home Depot is vastly over-parked. I've never found Target's parking lot to be a shitshow (shortage? poorly laid out?)

[mattaudio]

Shortage. Maybe it's not priced properly But seriously, last place in the world I'd want to be on a Saturday.

One real problem with the Target parking lot that should have been addressed with the redo of Richfield Parkway last year is egress from the lot. There are two points where everyone must turn left onto Richfield Parkway to access 66th Street or get back to the freeway: The south access that goes to the Famous Footwear / TCF / Target intersection, and the north access that goes right from Target's parking lot. There's a slight curve in Richfield Parkway between the two and a planted median in the middle, so motorists have difficulty judging gaps to exit the parking lots.

My suggestion? make the access into the parking lot RIRO. And make the south access a roundabout. There's already tons of space here, considering the western side of Richfield Parkway is not developed and the southeast corner of this intersection has a massive Bloomington-style porkchop. But with a bronze statue in the porkchop - how humane. This would make it much easier for motorists to flee the Target parking lot and would help the massive traffic mess in the lot. It would also preemptively keep this intersection from getting worse once the western half of Richfield Parkway is developed.

[LakeCharles]

It's nice living in NORI to be able to just take a right and cross 62 at Bloomington, cause I agree, going left is terrible.

[MNdible]

Shortage. Maybe it's not priced properly But seriously, last place in the world I'd want to be on a Saturday.

Nice, Matt!

It's nice living in NORI to be able to just take a right and cross 62 at Bloomington, cause I agree, going left is terrible.

Yep, this is generally our technique as well. It would be interesting to know how traffic levels have shifted since they improved the connection from Bloomington to Richfield Parkway.

[mister.shoes]

It's nice living in NORI to be able to just take a right and cross 62 at Bloomington, cause I agree, going left is terrible.

Yep, this is generally our technique as well. It would be interesting to know how traffic levels have shifted since they improved the connection from Bloomington to Richfield Parkway.

I, for one, never go left out of that entire complex if I can help it.

Also, the current Google Maps aerial photo is a pretty good illustration of typical parking usage. Target: full. Home Depot: not.