urbanMSP

The City Council is again considering historic designation for the Glendale housing project.

Another great opportunity for the council to demonstrate that they're all about the feels, rather than good governance.

Why can't they get their financing figured out? The same reason every other (non-subsidized) developer can't get their financing figured out. Interest rates have doubled, significantly increasing the financing costs for projects, while at the same time rent growth has stagnated. It's really just ...

Have tried, does not make a difference.

I'm finding that I have to log into the site way too often, like multiple times in a single visit. Anybody else having issues like this?

Edit: I had to log in again just to post this comment.

Yeah, I've always felt like the ridership imbalance on the north and south legs of the 4 was problematic. Maybe pairing Johnson with Cedar lines up better?

But would you really get that close to downtown Minneapolis and just scoot on by it? Or go Cedar to Washington to 3rd/Central and then somehow ...

Concerns raised by some folks in attendance were mostly about getting stuck behind a bus, since buses would be stopping in the lane (similar to all aBRT routes that run on streets with a single lane in each direction).

As I've noted before, this is a choice. Stopping buses in the traffic lanes ...

Katie may or may not be doing great so far, but this is pretty basic stuff that Hempel probably paid a lobbyist to write and plopped it on her desk for her to put her sponsorship signature on.

That's got to be the most half-baked development proposal I've ever seen. Like, I've seen submittals for new residential garages with more thought than that.

It doesn't seem to acknowledge the crazy retaining wall that's existing, nor does the building's siting do anything to respond to the best ...

I mean, it can both be true that Andy Brehm is a breathless Republican hack taking cheap shots at St. Paul, and also that the St. Paul (and Minneapolis) city council are more concerned with performative BS that makes the left online fringe feel good while ignoring basic good governance issues.

I'd be awfully surprised if that happened. St. Paul historically gets more than its fair share of state largesse for projects like this, and especially now with their downtown suffering, I just can't see the legislature supporting a Wild move.

I do think it would be great if our mid-sized metro ...

The Whipple building is a terrible housing conversion candidate. The "tower" portion of the building is about 240' per side. Buildings custom built for housing want to be roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of that width. You'd realistically need to carve a giant atrium out of the middle of the building to make it ...

It sounded like the Boom Island marina was going to be closed all summer long while they performed this work. I think once the work is completed, they could return there (assuming they don't go out of business in the meantime).

I wonder if that's going to put the Minneapolis Water Taxi out of commission. I feel like they've been feuding with the Park Board for a few years, but it would be a shame to lose them.

Google Earth historical aerials show that up until 2018, most of this lot was surface parking (presumably for Minnesota Center).

I'll be impressed if they can get this built. It feels like a higher priority than the RiversEdge project.

With enough public money, anything is possible.

This is kind of a silly thing that I'm sure nobody pays attention to, but are "likes" a thing that can easily be enabled? Sometimes there are posts that I appreciate, but don't feel like I have anything meaningful to add on to with my own post.

Those Lowry options are all pretty terrible. I know it's not a landmark, but it would be a bummer to lose the old Stasiu's building and completely give up the street face here.

Also, medians serve a purpose for pedestrians, but it feels like the plan is leaning too much on them. Streets with ...

I feel like there was lots of speculation when the St. Paul post office moved to the Eagan facility that it could eventually handle all operations for the entire metro area. Maybe the extra work load of e-commerce changed that math, but it definitely doesn't make sense to be pushing all of those ...

...And despite the nigh on impossible construction conditions (high financing rates, construction cost inflation, spotty demand) someone is actually moving forward with plans to build a 46 story office tower there.

It's a good thing nobody is considering a bunch of tariffs on building materials ...