urbanMSP

Yeah, I was thinking of that man when I wrote that. I just don't understand the mentality that these four blocks need to be preserved for small businesses and entrepereneurs, but everything else can go. Especially since, as I understood it, the UTech Center was actually intended to be an incubator f...

It's insane how much more this will change the character of Dinkytown than the House of Hanson redevelopment. It's a full 30 feet outside the "Dinkytown Core" though, so we can't waste time caring about it. We gotta spend all our energy keeping that underused core parking nice and underus...

I just saw a construction update in May saying that they'd be starting precast in July and glass in August. I'm not sure how much its been slowed down by the constant rain since then, but it sounds like it'll be progressing very quickly for the remainder of the summer.

I was going to post from the forum, but my phone died. I'll sum up my thoughts on the forum here. The candidates attending were Don Samuels, Cam Winton, Jackie Cherryhomes, Mark Andrew, Betsy Hodges, and Dan Cohen. Don Shelby started by asking the candidates for a show of hands on whether they belie...

Is anyone else at the Minneapolis Energy Forum? On this subject, at least, the candidates are a real agreeable bunch.

I don't want to call the Save Dinkytown people liars because I think they have a genuine concern about the neighborhood, but... they were doing a lot of lying. Rofl. I liked how Opus was totally prepared for them, and refuted many of their points before they got a chance to make them (again). I als...

Also this was the first time I'd met anyone from the forums and nobody was scary or murdery at all.

^This.

I was also surprised, but happy at Schiff's support. I'm guessing his Save Dinkytown appearance was mostly to curry support before the convention.

That's fair. I'll rephrase:

On the official USGBC scale that corporations love, you can't do better than LEED-Platinum.

I'm planning to leave work a little early and be there.

They're looking for 100,000 square feet of space in a green building in 2016. Wonder if they'll wind up in Xcel's old digs at Marquette Plaza? Can't do better than LEED-Platinum.

Does anyone else want to commit to attending the Planning Commission meeting Monday June 24 to speak in favor of this development?

I'll go! I know it's at4:30, but where is it? City Hall?

I only know 5 students living in the luxury apartments, so this isn't really solid data, but of those five, four have the rent paid by their parents. (The last works nearly full-time at Macy's). The luxury boom is definitely being driven by parents, not loans.

Looks like it'll be there through this fall.

Cool project in general, although I'm not sure how I feel about them vacating 20' of 2nd Ave S. Obviously they couldn't do much without vacating. Interesting that they propose nothing for the University Ave frontage. It looks like there's only 20 ft. between the edge of the ramp and the property li...

That is strange. I wonder if the new elevator shaft will have connections out to the ramp on every level, or if it'll only stop on floors 1-7, then 11-12. (Also, the Gross Area Calculations on page 3 show 8 levels of "linerhousing" apartments, while everything else says seven. Curiouser an...

They appear to be digging up the tunnel between Shepherd Lab and Civil Engineering. Does anyone know why?

It does feel like that. For example, the Book House found somewhere to relocate to, despite their earlier claims that it would be totally impossible to do so.

Huh. Looks like, with all the students studying for finals or whatever in this building, I can't get the stream to work. I'll have to depend on you guys for updates.

Could downtown really support two Targets? This isn't that far from the current downtown target.

Huh. I half expected Target to go for the trifecta, and grab this too.