urbanMSP

Will post graphics when available, but joint work session in Richfield to hear early plans for an apartment building to be constructed on the northwest corner of the Lunds at Penn and Crosstown. The western 50' tree buffer would remain, but a 6-story apartment building would be up against that. Much...

"horizontal mixed use across the site"

And although I kind of liked Bremer's portico, I think this new building is a big improvement -- it will also use the lot much more efficiently.

Reconnecting 65th was explored (very lightly) in the comp plan process, but was mostly eliminated. According to planning staff, neighbors to the north who were involved in the process preferred having it as a "dividing line" from commercial development. And of course, making that happens m...

I am really curious what they will do around France Ave. I assume they can't go wild there, and that bridge isn't super old (late 80s I believe). But it's awful for congesting the mainline on EB 494. It would be nice if they could at least combine both directions of France into a single longer on-ra...

The project is still weirdly framed, as if the scope of the project is to add 12' of asphalt to each side. In presentations, it essentially sounds like a full reconstruction (at least from France to Cedar), with the exception of the sub-20-year-old bridges (Xerxes, Penn, Lyndale). And I imagine they...

Well, it is also every 15 minutes midday on weekdays, the same as planned Orange Line service. OL is 15 minutes off-peak/weekends, 10 minutes during rush hour. 535 is every 15 at best (or every 30 in Bloomington as others have noted). On a personal level, I'm about equidistant to 76th/Knox or 66th ...

I'm glad that Richfield completed the re-build of Portland before this planned move of the interchange. I doubt the city would have gone through with the lane reduction if they had known about a possible increase due to the move. I grew up in Richfield just off Portland and my parents still live th...

^Thanks for the kind words, Multimodal and HiawathaGuy New stuff: Related to Bloomington as well as Richfield -- Richfield City Council and Planning Commission heard a presentation from MnDOT about the start of the 494 expansion project through Richfield and Bloomington. Some key things that came up...

Seems that the 6 via Xerxes is about 39 mins midday. 515 from Southdale to 35W is 7 mins and Orange Line from 66th to 7th would probably be 12-15 minutes, so even if the wait is 15 minutes, 515+Orange is faster. Edina has been going on about a Southdale circulator for some time. Until we have prope...

Adding a general topics thread for Richfield, I think I post enough stuff to warrant it ;) New Strib story today 'Explosion of interest' leads to $200M redevelopment boom in Richfield A preschool, a luxury car dealership and a Dunkin’ Donuts are just a few of the projects underway in Richfield, an i...

The fourplex idea could work, even though it seems like 66th and Portland should be able to stand as a node much denser and more amenity rich than this. Add a fifth fourplex, since it's already overparked. Probably, yeah. Although a few points for this density: 1. Could work well with a "book-...

Two possible developments presented at Planning Commission-Council-HRA work session: The first was at 66th & Queen. Developer owns a large (0.5 acre) single family home parcel, and is considering an apartment project as small as just that parcel, or as large as 6 additional parcels + vacation of...

Another idea is to extend the tree name theme east from Cedar, since that is a highly recognizable street name. Obviously some are taken elsewhere in the city, like Oak St. But, Pine, Fir, Honeylocust, etc. Many trees not taken. Sort of kitschy, but could tie together the series of major north-south...

A. What name do you all suggest for 34th Ave? B. Is it reasonable to make several hundred residents (and a couple dozen businesses) change their addresses, if the primary reason is to benefit business? There's no real benefit to the individual resident, other than your address becomes slightly easi...

I am well outside the numerological twilight zone, but still have persistent problems (on 2nd Ave S) with people mistaking Stevens for 2nd. Basically every time I take an Uber or taxi. If you were talking about as radical an idea as renaming streets, may as well clean up all the weirdness between Ni...

The sidewalk in question (on the south side of the parkway) actually ends before it can reach 13th avenue. Anyone using this sidewalk would be stranded mid-block. A new driveway+raised crosswalk would be an upgrade overall considering that this is not currently a reasonable route for anyone. Wow. Y...

As for walkable streets I think this project is a significant improvement to the site. There are currently no sidewalks here. They’re adding a sidewalk lining West 77th which is desperately needed, I see people walking in the street regularly instead of crossing and using the one on the southern si...

It just seems very short-sighted to think, “OMG we have to build something, anything, so we’ll just take this suburban apartment building and forget everything we’ve been pushing for about multimodal transportation, place making, and human-scaled streets.” Because, like the person who calls this ki...

Pentagon Park has been in development hell since the early 2000s and nothing except a small condo building (before the market crash) that got turned into apartments, some renovated office buildings, and a cleared dirt lot have come about on the site. I think the city council was just happy to get s...