DTE: Wells Fargo, Radisson Red, Edition Apts & Millwright Building

[mplsjaromir]

I like seeing Dan Cohen in the news.

The 17 story towers are 300 feet?

[Tyler]

Haven't they already approved the design of this thing? Who would build an "iconic tower" atop a nasty parking garage? If this has a single shred of truth, shouldn't we be looking to delay the ramps construction? Integrating the parking into the new building's design sounds better than some kind of frankenbuilding mess.

[Nick]

Last January a certain member here said Ryan is working on two 300-footers, which of course turned out to be the WF project announced last May. But he said they were also working on a 600-footer. Is it part of this development? Maybe, maybe not.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1036&start=160#p14922

[Tyler]

Last January a certain member here said Ryan is working on two 300-footers, which of course turned out to be the WF project announced last May. But he said they were also working on a 600-footer. Is it part of this development? Maybe, maybe not.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1036&start=160#p14922

Edit: and I'm not laughing at you avian. I'm laughing because I saw nasa's comment about how the Wells Fargo buildings had proven him "right." Not so much, huh?

[John]

Haven't they already approved the design of this thing? Who would build an "iconic tower" atop a nasty parking garage? If this has a single shred of truth, shouldn't we be looking to delay the ramps construction? Integrating the parking into the new building's design sounds better than some kind of frankenbuilding mess.

Totally agree. I'm skeptical an "iconic" tower will or can be built at this location.

[Avian]

Last January a certain member here said Ryan is working on two 300-footers, which of course turned out to be the WF project announced last May. But he said they were also working on a 600-footer. Is it part of this development? Maybe, maybe not.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1036&start=160#p14922

Edit: and I'm not laughing at you avian. I'm laughing because I saw nasa's comment about how the Wells Fargo buildings had proven him "right." Not so much, huh?

Even though he could be a bit abrasive... I'd give him credit for being right about the Ryan project with its two 300-footers. And, if you look back at Ryan's proposal last May, they clearly said this twin-tower complex is just phase one. If Ryan is developing a 600-footer I can't see it being anywhere else downtown that we've heard of. Especially since it would tie in almost exactly with the last paragraph quoted below.

From the Star Tribune:

"The initial proposal included about 300 residential units, 1.2 million square feet of office space in two towers, 40,000 square feet of retail, a parking ramp, skyway connections to downtown, and a park spanning two city blocks.

But according to an Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) submitted by Ryan to the city’s Zoning and Planning Committee, that’s just the bare minimum. Actually, the “minimum scenario” set out in documents includes up to 410 residential units or 350 units and a 110,000-square-foot hotel, plus up to 1.4 million square feet of office space, and 80,000 square feet of retail.

The “maximum” development scenario calls for 2.9 million square feet of office space, 335 residential units, or 275 residential units and a 150-room hotel, 105,000 square feet of retail and 2,725 parking spaces.

Where are they gonna put an additional 1.7 million square feet of office space?

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikin ... 93681.html

[Tyler]

huh? did he make this prediction somewhere else? all he said in this thread was that his "suggestion" was 2 30 floor residential buildings and a tall tower for WF. So, no, he didn't get that right. He sure thinks he did though.

[Nick]

[definitely not worth the effort]

Well, I think if you compare these, on January 2nd and January 11th, it's definitely not the same thing, but it's also possible that all the binders full of insider information got mixed up, but it's also possible there's at least a partial Manti T'eo situation going on.

[/definitely not worth the effort]

[tab]

Haven't they already approved the design of this thing? Who would build an "iconic tower" atop a nasty parking garage? If this has a single shred of truth, shouldn't we be looking to delay the ramps construction? Integrating the parking into the new building's design sounds better than some kind of frankenbuilding mess.

Magellan, Opus, Mortenson, to name a few recent downtown examples. I had the same gut reaction as you initially, but the parking podium/tower combination actually has some advantages, and this location across the street from a combined Blue/Green line LRT station and 3 blocks from the riverfront is not bad.

[mattaudio]

I'm not going to do a full analysis, but I'm curious how this really compares to podium parking elsewhere. This ramp will have 2000+ spaces, likely more than the Leamington or Gateway ramps. That's considerably more than providing a couple hundred spaces for just residents and tenants in that building. So the scale will be quite different. Doable? Yes. Equal to LPM, Nic on 5th, etc? Not quite.

[RailBaronYarr]

I actually think Woodruff and Cohen have a point re: ramp financing. The legislation requires the spaces (stupid, but that isn't changeable). That means those spaces are to be part of the stadium's costs (or, at the very least the city/state's portion). If the city wants to leverage the fact that they'll exist to spur adjacent development, great! If they want to spend additional money to make the ramp capable of further vertical development, great! But since the MSFA is only contributing 35% of the ramp's costs, the city is putting in a hefty amount more than they bargained for in the $150m figure. Am I crazy?

I think, given the numbers, this is still risky and I have a bad taste in my mouth about needing so much city bonding to spur such large development (instead of natural, smaller-scale stuff that happens on its own), even if 1/3 of it is for creating a park. With that said, I can really get behind this IF:

- The ramp is designed well. Underground, ground-level commercial space circling parking, SOMETHING
- The park is guaranteed to have good programming and connections to the surrounding buildings
- Park and Portland are both heavily calmed as they cut through the park

[RailBaronYarr]

Also, not surprisingly, the Strib editorial board endorses the plan:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/edit ... 85111.html

Side note, when Rybak says "over 30 years the project will generate $42 million in property taxes for the city, $50 million for Hennepin County and $35 million for the Minneapolis public schools" - does that mean cumulative taxes (no overlap)? Like, $127m in a 30 year span? If so, that's $4.23m per year, which is less than I predicted earlier in the thread, but not too far off.

[Viktor Vaughn]

I'm overall supportive of the Ryan/WF development and I'm excited to see Downtown East begin to transform.

Yet, I don't think it's a good idea to rush this through a lame-duck city council before the end of the year. This is a big complicated project with lots of vital details. The city is putting up tens of millions in financing and will be on the hook for those bond payments over two decades. Rybak says this isn't a subsidy, but it is. I'm glad they're not asking for TIF or other direct public funds, but if this project was without subsidy they'd pay for their own parking and finance their own project. Of course a public park is a very legitimate use of city funds and the parking is required by stadium legislation (even though our officials act like this is something written in stone by God, and not the terms they themselves recently negotiated, but I digress). There's so many powerful players involved here, let's just make sure we have the details right and know what's in the fine print.

Ryan has said the current city council should approve the project because they've been involved in the planning and it would take too long to get the new council up to speed. I get that, but I also think that the new council needs to learn the details of this project, do their due diligence, and really own it. What a better way to do that than see it through the approval process. Ultimately, the new city council will oversee the development’s construction and should be held accountable if they screw it up. Rushing this through the last meeting of the current council (when a majority of seats are about to turn over) sets up our public officials to evade responsibility.

I understand this is a major achievement for Rybak and he wants to see it through while he's still mayor. I get that the Star Tribune wants a done-deal land sale so they can move on as an organization. It makes sense that Ryan doesn't want the risk inherent in pushing this through a new council.

But as a member of the public who wants to see this development done as well as possible, I'm seeing red flags in the rush to get this deal done. As a city, we've blown so many large scale redevelopments; let's get this one right...and approve it early next year.

(for the complete opposite view, see the Strib's editorial - Approve the Ryan project this Friday)

[Tyler]

Haven't they already approved the design of this thing? Who would build an "iconic tower" atop a nasty parking garage? If this has a single shred of truth, shouldn't we be looking to delay the ramps construction? Integrating the parking into the new building's design sounds better than some kind of frankenbuilding mess.

Magellan, Opus, Mortenson, to name a few recent downtown examples. I had the same gut reaction as you initially, but the parking podium/tower combination actually has some advantages, and this location across the street from a combined Blue/Green line LRT station and 3 blocks from the riverfront is not bad.

I'm talking more specifically about someone building on top of the ramp as it was submitted to the planning commission. If this wins final approval, can that design simply be scrapped and replaced with something that fits with The Icon®?

[Silophant]

I agree with Viktor's points. If there was a danger of the next council killing this deal off, then, yeah, rush it through. But I think the new council will be more likely to push to make this project the best it can possibly be, so they should be given a chance to do it.

[mullen]

dan cohen and paul ostrow are bitter men that's all. bitter wannabe mayors. to deny this much tax base creation and sorely needed green space is just meanspirited and has no bearing. Paul ostrow should just move out of the city he seems to hate it so much. nobody heard of dan cohen until he came out from under his rock to run for mayor like the spider he is.

this hasn't bee rushed through. it's been in talks for months and gone through the city council cycle like anything. you believe lisa goodman, betsy hodges, etc, were not kept up to date on the project for months?

id rather have a council with experience policy makers deciding this than a group of people half of whom will spend the next year just trying to get up to speed on the work of being a councilmember.

[tab]

I'm talking more specifically about someone building on top of the ramp as it was submitted to the planning commission. If this wins final approval, can that design simply be scrapped and replaced with something that fits with The Icon®?

Good question. I think there's a finite window of opportunity for a developer to buy the air rights and influence the ramp design. I don't think the design can be scrapped whole cloth, but certainly the skin of the ramp could be tailored to match/complement the tower above, and the structure would be increased according to the need. Mattaudio, the ramp is proposed to have roughly 1,600 spaces, so you're right that it will be massive, and significantly larger than any of the examples I cited. And a disadvantage will be that the spaces aren't available for exclusive use of the tower above. The other side of that coin is that the developer for the potential tower doesn't have to pay for the construction of the ramp. They would essentially be starting at the 7th floor (give or take) with great views, and have parking directly accessible to their tenants at market rates, except on game days. Not a bad starting point for a potential development.

[mpls_tc]

Even with the lawsuit setback, I think this will get approved by finding the 65 million elsewhere. It does appear that the ramp and park are benefitting the Vikings and to say that it's not would be false. I do think a judge will accept the terms of the lawsuit but the money will come from somewhere else to continue moving forward with the project.

[lordmoke]

Now with City Council approval!
http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/235756151.html

[Silophant]

City Council passed it. Hopefully the lawsuit doesn't become an issue.