urbanMSP

The FRA approved a grant for up to $31.8M for the TCMC Second Train project, despite MN's $10M of matching funds remaining absent.

Looks like they're in North Loop right now. Be nice to keep them Downtown and see them grab more space. Minneapolis-based health insurance company raises another $500M, bringing total to $1.5B https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-based-health-insurance-company-raises-another-500m-bringing-total-...

According to this (locked) BizJournals article , this project is intending to meet the IZ requirements by having 20% of the units be affordable at 50% AMI for 30 years, in return for some city financial assistance, instead of the unsubsidized 8% at 60% AMI for 20 years option. The former has been av...

Meh. The IDS Center was out of scale for like fifteen years, until it wasn't anymore. It's fine.

Those are good ideas. To replace the skyway premium, I'd like to see a premium for connecting to district energy systems instead - they're significantly more efficient than individual systems, easier to decarbonize, and I think there will need to be a regulatory push to get the downtown system exten...

Maybe! I wonder how the "buses" line-item of the D Line budget compares to the remaining funding gap.

Here's the CPC COW packet.

(you guys I actually remembered to preview and make sure I got the link right this time)

The proposal is for up to $1M in rebate per transit bus, with some language about working with the agencies to help pay upfront costs "given the potential for limited resources as the economy gradually recovers". So it sounds like Xcel is pretty much offering to buy the buses for Metro Transit, unle...

As part of their COVID recovery proposal, Xcel Energy has pitched funding $100M worth of rebates for the purchase of battery electric transit buses and school buses in Minnesota. $65M of that would be specifically earmarked for Metro Transit. This would need to be approved by the PUC, but they speci...

I was more referring to what it meant, if anything, that their Atlanta office ended up in the suburbs instead of downtown. Though, for what it's worth, the Sandy Springs office is going to be a few floors of an existing tower close to a MARTA station. So even though it's in the burbs, it's a pretty ...

Too bad the MLS stadium wasn't there yet. Then Snelling might have rated a Lake St. style elevated station. Or maybe just a $10M ped bridge over a not terribly busy street.

Here's a Strib article about the move. Apparently they're consolidating down to three major locations: HQ in Minneapolis, manufacturing and call centers in Kansas City, and product and app development in Atlanta. Seems like Sandy Springs/Georgia probably gave them a pile of tax breaks to land that f...

Deluxe Corp. is selling their 50-acre campus in Shoreview and moving 538 employees to 801 Marquette, the former TCF Tower. (Locked)

The FTA has officially awarded the FFGA for SWLRT.

Finally.

The new NexTrip system went online last week.

Apparently the BCTC chargers are finally completely fixed. Hopefully they're confident that it was a one-time thing, and they'll still be willing to use electric buses on future BRT (and normal) routes.

I haven't taken a photo, but this is complete, or close to it. The rotating sign was installed a few weeks ago. Also, despite how mad the Day Block owner was about the loss of parking when it was proposed, COVID has convinced him to convert his own parking lot into a patio space, and it's extremely ...

Not too surprising. I've been assuming that any restaurant that didn't even try to partially reopen for the summer isn't going to, especially HopCat, which had a decent sized patio already and a pretty obvious place to expand it if necessary. I think they should have done takeout at the very least, ...

Yeah, my partner and I took the EB to Glacier and back a couple weeks ago, and we were tourists in a sleeper room, but it seemed pretty clear that the most, if not all, of the people sitting in coach were taking it to get somewhere. I was figuring that there might be enough red-state senators demand...

Looks like they were, but only barely. Each corridor was scored out of 100, and Century got a 39.7, with American getting 38.1, compared to Nicollet getting a 90.1 and Lowry, the last one to make the cut for further study, getting a 52.6. So really, they effectively tied - American did a tiny bit be...