urbanMSP

There's nothing magical about building retail space. There's nothing to say that in five years, they couldn't convert some portion of the conference rooms on the first floor into retail space. I'd rather see an active office use than vacant retail.

Do we really think that the problem with downtown retail is that there aren't enough vacant retail spaces?

Georgia Pacific just announced they're shutting down their plant just to the west of the site (known as "Superwood" to us olde-timers). That's a lot more land potentially in play, and also would remove an unattractive neighbor. Oh, and it also puts a couple hundred people out of high-payin...

Anything above 8 floors needs a CUP for increased height.

I think the current proposal seems like a reasonable compromise. I hear a lot of "Park and Portland are just mini-freeways serving suburban drivers." If you count everything south of Franklin as the suburbs, then maybe you're right. Should the speed be lowered? Are there excess lanes in so...

Interesting that they didn't figure out a way to vacate the alley opening up onto Nicollet Mall there. It's going to be a pretty big gap between this building and the Nicollet Residences, providing an unobstructed view into the loading dock.

One of the changes that will apparently come with digital conversion is theaters will be able to show television. So theoretically you could go to the theater and watch the Super Bowl or whatnot. I doubt that's a game changer, but offers some interesting possibilities. That point in the article was...

The Midtown ramp was designed to be wrapped, and the housing was built as part of the initial construction (although perhaps by a different contractor?). The Oak Street may well be "wrappable", although I've long heard rumblings that the ramp itself is not in the University's long term pla...

And I'm not sure that I'd say that the fact that the Block E theater is closing is proof that there isn't a market for a downtown theater, although people will certainly read it that way. In my case, I wanted to go downtown to the movies, but the experience at Block E wasn't a good one (on many leve...

Since this digital technology upgrade issue will affect all theaters, what is the status/future for other smaller theaters being suggested as alternatives? Is St Anthony Main converted/ing? Living downtown it will be disappointing to take buses or drive somewhere else to see a movie, when we're use...

I was over here about a month ago, and I was surprised at how much vacant retail space there still is in the West End development. I know that the recession has been tough on the economy, but if you exclude the restaurant spaces (which appear to be doing fairly well), the retail lease-out here looks...

The parking ramp on Washington Ave S across from the Depot ice rink had a new facade put on a couple years ago. They also put some history info panels where some motorcycle / bicycle parking was facing Washington. Speaking of this ramp, does anybody know why it has that strange protrusion hanging o...

I can't say I'm terribly sad about the theater closing. If anything, this should help force the developers hand into getting something done sooner rather than later. To be clear, the developer wanted the theater to close and in fact went to court in order to break their lease. We should also rememb...

As I recall, it was basically a mirror image of Phase 1.

And I too would have preferred to see more office space down here.

I would also take more trips up to Duluth if I could hop a train Friday night and be back into Minneapolis Sunday night. The Downtown is pretty compact, and by the area between Downtown and the Aerial bridge has a lot of hotels and is within walking distance to Downtown. I'd also imagine that, in t...

Here you can see the little park area they are constructing on the side of the building. And by park, they meant a pad for their transformers. I still don't share the general enthusiasm that many of you have for this project, and this photo demonstrates how badly that white house on the corner has ...

I think that for whatever reason, their official rendering is shot from a particularly unflattering angle. I think that in reality, it's going to be just fine. Not spectacular or soaring, but a high quality high rise building that's going to anchor a currently sad, forlorn corner of downtown. I susp...

Does Saint Cloud not qualify for subsidies? Otherwise I could see Great Lakes providing service, granted it'd be on their small prop planes. No, I think that St. Cloud is too close to MSP to qualify for Essential Air Service. Delta's old service into MSP from St. Cloud really didn't make sense, and...

If this project gets delayed much longer, I'll outline some specifics how a project of this size gets financing. That way, everyone can understand the complexities of any large project financing. Even if this project breaks ground tomorrow, I'd appreciate your insight on this. I think most of us ha...

I guess I'm more disappointed about them not reopening the street than the actual appearance of the building. There are already large, multi-story buildings (Bierman, Marcy Park Apartments, that place over on like 8th Avenue Southeast & 7th Street Southeast) spread throughout the non-Dinkytown ...