urbanMSP

For comparison, the Foshay Tower (not including the low-rise building encircling it) has a footprint of around 6400 square feet, or around 0.15 acres.

Thanks for the comparison. That is skinny! You really get a good sense of that when you circle around the Prohibition Bar at the top of The Foshay. It takes less than one minute. There's going to be some nice variety of scale and proportion on the Powers block with Nic on Fifth, 400 Marquette, and Xcel. It should end up being a very attractive grouping for that block.

I like it. These three buildings Nic, Xcel, Mortenson will be great additions for the city.

Love.

Love the external skeleton, but think it would be even more impressive if the external skeleton was a different color than white, maybe red or gold. I'm nitpicking though, it looks great.

This looks like it pays homage to the podium of 510 Marquette a block south, but in a good way.

This looks like it pays homage to the podium of 510 Marquette a block south, but in a good way.

That was my first thought exactly, which is somewhat amusing, seeing as 510 might be getting a facelift soon. Regardless, this is certainly a nice looking building on paper, but I'll reserve full judgement until I see what materials they're proposing.

Gorgeous!! First floor retail?

Looks good. And I'm really glad we're seeing more and more apartment/condo towers intermingled with the office towers.

I also wonder what the first floor will bring - too tough to tell from this pic.

Looks nice. I think it's great 3 new buildings are replacing surface parking and a crumbling parking ramp on this block. Hopefully the empty lot across the street to the north will be developed soon.

I'm not too thrilled with the design, but it's a lot better than having a surface parking lot. With the two apartment buildings on this block and the Soo Line Building conversion right across the street, we could be looking at 1,000 new residents in a very small corner of downtown. 1,000 residents may not sound like a lot, but it should be enough to sustain a small convenience store, coffee shop and other retail on the block.

I can't wait to see how all the development projects on this block fuse together.

Here's a Minnesotan response for you...I'm not wowed by it, but I'm not offended either.

It seems rather squat for 30 stories, but some of that may be that the image isn't the best to begin with. They did a nice job of hiding the parking structure.

I agree - the parking is nicely shielded. I like the vertical lines in the pedestal cladding. This building is different. As much as I love the Minneapolis style of blue glass and warm stone (excluding the recent, indistinguishable apartments), this is a bold, modern departure that really adds something to our downtown landscape.

I actually like it quite a bit.

I agree with MotorCity2TwinCities and adding something like a red color to the external skeleton - that would be a bold statement and add so much to the block and downtown in general. It's hard to nit-pik a 30 story tower...

I'll take it. Way better than nothing. Does anyone know the height- I'm guessing 300-330ft range?

It's a very nice wall building to enhance the canyon effect along Marquette, however, it will minimal impact on the skyline ( for those of us who care about such things). It is slightly taller and slimmer than Nic on Fifth which is good. The oddest thing about the rendering is I dont' see any balconies for the apartments which confuses me. I think the skeletal frame over the glass is a very cool visual idea, but it should be a bit more accentuated in the final design to give the building more architectural distinction. This is the conceptual rendering, so there will likely be some refinement and hopefully they will improve on what feels like a promising new building.

Not impressed. I know where people are coming from when they say better than nothing but the same could be said for a little greenery until something bolder comes along. The additional construction will be nice. I can't believe they would call this luxury without balconies. I mean who wants to jump through a window when you lose your money in the stock market?

I like it, it's deffinately going to shore up the wall of buildings along 4th street and make more of a stark contrast between the DT core and the gateway district. Now if only we could get a park over there...

This is exciting! More so than the block-e crap at Nic on Fifth. Is it possible that if this is successful that Mortensen could change the way developers approach apartments now (finally put to rest the 4+1, 5+1 stick construction with their monotonous seas of trash collecting balconies)?