urbanMSP

One thing to keep in mind about SWLRT is that the cities along the line have put in considerable effort in thinking about how to shape station area development and support TOD. While folks can go on and on about whether they like this line, it appears to be happening now and there is a lot of opport...

Read that Alchemy 365 opened. Anyone have any recent photos of the project? How is the connection along the busway seem?

The Low Income Housing Tax Credits will make Phase I affordable for at least 15 years.

The north side promenade running along the Midtown Greenway in this area was a huge missed opportunity for the community. So much of the conversation about the development projects was on the scale, unit count, and parking of those buildings and much less on the promenade. The City of Minneapolis re...

Had HH there back in July. Not a bad spot for that.

I'm dying to know if the curved area will be clad by specially fabricated curved cement board panels. This design is crying out for cement board.

Yeah, I actually really hate that our pedestrian overlay districts ban fast food. It just comes off as the worst sort of progressive "we know what's best for you." It's not like fast food needs a drive-thru (which is a legitimate thing to ban). I assume it also will prevent more than a fe...

Some of their restaurants, like the Richfield one, includes movable chairs. The only stationary seating are the booths.

Per 520.160 - definitions: Restaurant, fast food. An establishment whose design or principal method of operation includes five (5) or more of the following characteristics. In addition, any restaurant with a drive-through facility shall be considered a fast food restaurant. (1) A permanent menu boar...

Point taken about the audio-alerting functions of the beg button. I was intending more that one shouldn't have to press the button to get a walk. As for 28th bus stop, it'd be useful to get some data on how many mobility restricted individuals use it. I found that stop extremely frustrating as it ra...

If there were ever a subway, there would likely be only one station in between Loring Park and Uptown Transit Center. Stations are expensive. That said, aBRT is not as capital intensive. Things to consider: how should surface transit operate in this section, especially if there are both local and aB...

Love that it has so many family sized units, including many 3- and 4-BRs.

The Instagram for MoZaic East said they were excited to have Alchemy365 with a photo showing them with a sign saying they love Uptown. No additional details. Alchemy365 has several locations and offers strength/conditioning and yoga classes.

In case you are interested, I did place some historical files on the Lake/Lagoon one-way pair. I believe most of these came from a file that the traffic division at the City of Minneapolis maintained that I photocopied back in the early 2000s. I am not the best at figuring out how to share files now...

I have a whole cache of old one-way/two-way/contraflow files on Lagoon/Lake from the 80s/90s. They're from Public Works' files, including references to saving the files for the next time someone brings the topic up. If anyone's interested, I can try to figure out how to share them.

All these projects convince me more that using a much more rigid zoning code on height and FAR would reduce fights for both the neighbors and developers. But the only way that would work is if the zoning districts were both redefined and reapplied so that the specific parcel had the zoning necessary...

Per the article, I don't really buy the idea that the developer would be this far into construction and claim that their project is not financially feasible without the additional units. The construction loan was likely predicated on the pre-lease to Aldi and structural changes at this point in the ...

I've long hoped, perhaps unrealistically, that given the combined ownership of the Arby's/Cub site and the ample public ROW, perhaps there'd be a way to more square off the intersection so WB Lake traffic took a harder right and a harder left onto Lagoon, and therefore increase the size of the Arby'...

The 12th Street ramp is probably my favorite part of this project, as it will serve hundreds of buses and not just the Orange Line. The Lake Street station also has a lot of potential. With the high frequency 515 along 66th, the Orange Line has potential, depending on where you're going, to be a nic...

Just saying that there often are alternatives. I worked on a project that used a grout-injected auger method and vibrated steel beam into the grout. Used that method as it was close to an adjacent business that would have had its revenue negatively impacted by noise.