urbanMSP

I know the board has been dying for my opinion on the topic, so here goes: changing the name of the street is dumb. I don't care that the Twins did it, I don't care that other NFL teams do it. I find it dumb. I find the team's rationale for the change - that Chicago Ave is the name of a rival - is e...

I think the Target parking blocks will get redeveloped in the next 10 years or so. There arent many more parcels that size fronting University, and the strip mall that is on the corner of Hamline and University will be easy to tear down. The Walmart/Herbergers/Cub superblock will remain as is for th...

The Minneapolis vs St Paul conversation is kind of tiring to me, because the Midway is very well-connected to many parts of Minneapolis. It is 20 minutes on the Green Line from Nicollet to Snelling, and hardly a 10 minute drive on I-94. The U of M is much more conveniently accessed from Midway than ...

It got knocked out of commission on a windy day a few weeks ago and has been down since. The owner of the building plans on converting the lighting to LED and want it back up and running this summer. There was a Strib article about it, a few weeks ago.

I live in the neighborhood, and I know this idea in heresy to most of my neighbors, but parking really is quite easy to come by on most residential streets. I would rather have people parking there in game days then having a giant ramp that eats up developable land and is underutilized most of the t...

Sanders is not Nader. While I will vote for the D nominee whomever it may be, I understand the position of people who won't. I have to admit that a very small part of me does want to see the party flounder. The Republicans spent decades in the wilderness figuring out worldview and messaging and all...

A friend from college has a liquor store with only Colorado-made beer and spirits. He is doing pretty well, might be worth checking out.

hugosbeer.com/

There are a few small renovation projects going on in this area that will collectively go a long way to revitalizing the area. One of the small groceries is getting a new storefront, the retail building that SugaRush (great donuts there) is getting new cladding, and this project. Baby steps.

This one turned out quite nicely.

I seem to remember, back in the condo craze of the mid-aughts, that a bank-financed project would need something like 50% of its units presold before starting construction. It seems this is another advantage of Stanton's peculiar self-financing mode of doing business - he can start construction much...

Yes, this is a fluffy article that focuses on (self-described) benevolent public spirit of the group while not addressing any awkward questions. Here's two off the top of my head: - Businesses apparently saw the need to override Pawlenty's veto of the transportation tax, but they did not advocate fo...

I almost think that the curtain wall order for those openings was delayed, so this is a temporary solution for the winter months. This can't be the finished product. It looked better when abandoned.

If anyone has any leads on an architecture internship, I would hugely appreciate the help! :) It seems like every firm in town is doing well, right now. Take a look at the AIA MN job bank for starters, and research companies whose work fits your interests. Then start conversations with the hiring/H...

This project continues to get worse. I haven't passed by in daytime lately, otherwise I would grab a picture, but they infilled 90% of the window openings on the existing building with EIFS, leaving only a single small opening on the second level, which is filled with a cheap-ass aluminum widow. It ...

I think that the combination of reduced traffic, the streetscaping around the line (planters, brick pavers, etc), and the crosswalks at the stations a block from the major intersections have left University in much better shape than before. It certainly looks better than it would with a concrete via...

I had a flight cancelled on me and got to spend a night in Miami in 2005. The airline put me up in a run of the mill hotel on a stroad somewhere close to the airport. There was a Cuban restaurant across the street in what looked to be a converted Denny's that I took a chance on for dinner. It ended ...

I actually just heard from a friend that Ecolab has plans to start building supertalls in St. Paul. Ecolab just discovered a free-energy generating technology and now they'll need a bunch of burj khalifas worth of office and residential space for their expected growth. Here's a leaked rendering who...

Here's my question: is LRT warranted in this corridor? The Central Corridor had a regular bus line running every 10 minutes every day (more frequently during rush hours) and a limited stop bus route paralleling it. The 54 runs every 15 minutes Monday-Saturday and only every 20-30 minutes on Sunday'...

Those are just manufacturer's cut sheets of the various windows that are proposed for the project. Freely available on the web. It is not like someone at the architect's office sat down and drew all those details. The bigger question, yes, I am alright that the HPC requires that kind of documentatio...

Cool news. 2 new international destinations from Delta next year, both coming more or less out of the blue. I wonder if there will be others.