urbanMSP

I have been watching the construction on this bridge and screaming to myself that they should just be doing all the work for blue line so its good to see someone else thinking ahead


Yeah I would think they could have added this work onto the change orders for Southwest, given how large the ...

MSP Business Journal has a story up about federally-owned real estate. With remote work it was inevitable that the GSA would start looking at consolidating offices and selling off surplus buildings. That will probably be accelerated by the current administration, despite somewhat conflicting with ...

Nick Halter with Axios wrote about the Ameriprise building today: https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2025/02/03/downtown-minneapolis-office-tower-discount
UrbanMSP member Rhett Carlson found some concept renderings of a residential conversion: https://x.com/rhett_carlson/status ...

In 15 years of being into planning stuff, that is easily one of the coolest interactive maps I have ever laid my eyes on.

Comments on Segment 4, from south to north:

A roundabout at Franklin/27th/ERR is how the intersection should have been rebuilt ~15 years ago, but people were too unfamiliar ...

This building was always going to sell for a fraction of it's previous value, just as Wells Fargo Center and other buildings have recently. But there are two other major factors driving this building's sale price down even further, well below its actual valuation:

1) It was built for a single ...

- I think people who are used to the Nicollet buses detouring for a few blocks at the drop of a hat are underestimating the legibility/usability hit that comes with that. It's bad enough with the local routes, it'd be absolutely unacceptable to have the F Line (or future Rt 18 BRT) move away from ...

I also like the idea of a public/quasi-public use at 20 Washington. It would be an easier conversion than hotel and it would be ideal for the grounds to be publicly owned. I assume/hope there are easements across the property today that allow the public to use the lawn area and walk between ...

So why is this under serious consideration now but was not a decade ago when the state and city spent $5 million per block to rebuilt Nicollet?


Reason #1 is there was no capacity to add local buses on Marq2 in ~2014 when the rebuild was being planned. Metro Transit was struggling to get express ...

I swear I remember seeing concept drawings for that stretch of Pennsylvania Ave within the past few years, maybe shared on this forum. Road diet, some realignment and maybe closing some of ramps off Pennsylvania to Jackson. Does that ring a bell for anyone else? I'm at least half sure it was an ...

Here's a Finance & Commerce story (dated 9/5/23) and a rendering: https://finance-commerce.com/2023/09/passive-house-apartment-project-planned-in-minneapolis/ If the project hasn't changed since then, it's supposed to be 32 apartments and 1,553 square feet of commercial space, which could be one or ...

Facilities: Targeting change in Minneapolis https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/A ... get-center

Interesting idea here:
Trains and transmission: A climate solution hiding in plain sight?

The more freeway you cover, the more expensive meeting these requirements becomes. So you'll get a better bang for your buck with small, strategic interventions like that than just planning to cap long stretches of freeway.

And Prospect Park, suggested above as a good example of where you might ...

Here's the same article on Yahoo, not behind PP's paywall: https://www.yahoo.com/news/st-paul-mndot-look-revive-202500923.html

It's interesting they mention trying to get some of the funding from Ramsey County's transit sales tax. AFAIK, none of the other ABRT lines have used that funding source. I ...

From the 2021 Network Next study: https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites/1/media/network-next/nn-corridor-profile-nicollet.pdf

The endpoint shown on that doc is the layover/turnaround for the 18D: https://maps.app.goo.gl/oJe4djYLwFhnhe8w9 I assume bus operators can use the restroom at the Super8 ...

Yeah, despite Johnson/Lyndale's high score, I have trouble believing that they'll do a route that parallels other BRT routes within a half mile for most of its length while there's still so many areas with no BRT service at all.

I'm guessing the Nicollet corridor will certainly become the J Line ...

MinnPost article: With parts of the line completed, why can’t Southwest light rail trains roll?

Short answer: there's no maintenance facility on the line. Any trains needing maintenance would need to be removed from the tracks and trucked to the Blue Line OMF.

The most substantial update in the ...

Wells Fargo Center, which previously sold in April 2019 for $313.6 million, reportedly sold for just $85 million. It was recently valued at $173 million for tax assessment purposes, and was expected to sell for something closer to $110-120 million. Not great news for Minneapolis taxpayers.

Strib ...

I'm sure the hospital was the main justification for this station. When looking at the map aerial last week, I actually forgot about the hospital being there. It's just far enough away that it likely won't be a big driver of pedestrian traffic. It looks like the actual walking distance from the ...

Hindsight 20/20, it really looks like the Louisiana Station could've been skipped entirely, or at least deferred to bring costs down. It's barely a 1/2-mile from Wooddale Station and the surrounding land use and walkability is pretty bad.

Just look at this aerial: https://gis.hennepin.us/property ...