urbanMSP

Is the former Fuji Ya building still standing? What a terrific location that is. Kind of! They took down a story and are gutting the building to expose ruins of the old mill underneath. There will be a restaurant operated by Sean Sherman aka The Sioux Chef. All in all sounds pretty great: https://w...

Hmmm... looks like the building owner opted not to renew the lease with VS after 10 years, rather than VS closing by choice. They must think they can land an even bigger fish. My guess is that they already had a few (several?) brokers contact them with much more appealing offers than whatever VS si...

Oh come on you can do better than 6 stories.

Schafer Richardson can't. They tried with Montage/Nye's and folded pretty quickly.

Keep making noise... squeaky wheel, etc. It's very important the city gets this right, and it can set the tone for the mayor's "affordable housing or bust" agenda. Tell your friends and neighbors to stay in contact with the council member, etc.

Happy new year y'all. The first Park Board meeting of the year is this Tuesday the 2nd at 5:00 pm. You are welcome to join the swearing in of the new board and celebration of all the hard work we accomplished this year! The board will elect the president and make all the appointments. Agenda is here...

10-year leases are pretty standard for commercial. Anything less than 5 years + 5-year option is basically considered a pop-up. Especially for a new build out, there's a lot of sunk cost to spread out.

I think keeping the city and park police departments separate are a good idea. Minneapolis has to budget an additional approx. $30,000 per officer on insurance/payout money due to their long history of nefarious activity. Park Police don't have that problem. A LOT of the 20 year Neighborhood Parks P...

MPRB Superintendent Jayne Miller has resigned, effective Feb 2018. She is taking a job in Pittsburgh. Her contract was up later in 2018.

“I always wanted to live in a New York penthouse like Frank Sinatra in ‘Come Blow Your Horn.’"  http://www.startribune.com/2-25m-penthouse-condo-offers-skyscraper-views-in-the-heart-of-downtown-minneapolis/457717633/#1 Had always wondered about this place, and man it's ugly inside. They managed...

I transfer buses in this part of downtown and I will say the wall of glass facing the river looks pretty sharp. I give the podium a big fat "meh" but all-in-all the building looks better than I anticipated.

I didn't win the race but we did win the battle. There's a 7-2 "progressive" majority on the Park Board now and it's highly likely that Brad Bourn will be voted president for his 3rd term. Londel and LaTrisha are exactly the kind of folks we want on the Park Board, and I honestly think Meg...

HA that's amazing. FWIW Russ is legit. He is also bombastic, which can be grating to people. But I have no doubt he will do the work and do it well.

I door knocked International Market Square today. First time I've been in that side of the building. Approximately 95% of the households had dogs.

In Park Board news, RT publicly unendorsed Russ on Facebook. It comes across as unhinged. I don't think it will affect the outcome at all.

Carol's said some pretty mean transphobic shit about me, and is hellbent on stretching the truth so it suits her. I can't comment too much on her work for Board of Estimate, but people I respect around City Hall don't like her for all the reasons John Edwards notes. As for RCV in the at-large Park B...

Besides the food hall portion, how is this not an internal mall? Renderings make it look just like that. Good circulation, yes, but I'm not seeing it. Maybe floor plans will clear it up.

I'm certainly down with this vision, I'm just curious why they think an inward-facing mall is going to work downtown when there are multiple examples of it never taking off... You can point to a failed version of this project built each decade going back at least 40 years.

Tom Hoch donated to Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek several times from 2014-2016. Stanek sent Hennepin County Sheriffs to beat up protesters/water protectors at Standing Rock. Stanek treats Hennepin County Jail (which is also the City of Minneapolis jail) as an open pipeline to ICE. https://twit...

Park Board, DNR, and state legislators have agreed to a 5-year permit to maintain pumping at increased levels at Hiawatha Golf Course. This will keep the course open until parties can figure out what's next. http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-park-board-delays-closure-of-hiawatha-golf-club/44982...

Here is a questionnaire by the League of Women Voters about the MPRB race: https://lwvmpls.org/park-board-candidate-questionnaire/ Pretty much all the information you need to make a decision is in there. You can vote for one district candidate and 3 at-large. Sample ballots are here: http://myballot...

The eccentric busybodies currently in charge are pretty furious the new candidates have thought through issues more thoroughly than they ever have. https://www.facebook.com/superdev3/post ... 1026104843