urbanMSP

The way the office towers are positioned on the blocks, the lots on the park are actually very small though. The lots to the north of both of those towers are actually many times larger even though it might not be obvious. I agree that facing the park seems like a much better configuration but they just weren't planned out that way.

I believe there will be apartments on the south side of both towers. The hotel will be on the north side of one of them. Those blank concrete walls we see on each side will be covered by the apartments/hotel.

I vaguely remember seeing a layout for the apartment buildings facing the park that showed a corridor right up against the office tower wall, and apartments only on the south side of the corridor. Very small lots, and I'm assuming that the Radisson Red business model wouldn't work with the 60ish rooms they'd probably be able to fit on one of them.

Unless there's space to put a central courtyard (and that seems doubtful) the hotel will be a single row with a hallway hugging the office construction as well - while it may be less problematic than an apartment, a hotel room without windows would be very unprofitable (if even allowed by code, which also seems doubtful). Of course, a hotel has a lot of back-of-house operations that could use space between the hallway and the office portion, and so a well-designed hotel could make much better use of this configuration than an apartment building could.

You can see here that the Wells Fargo towers only take up a little over half the block. There is plenty of space on the backsides.

Unless there's space to put a central courtyard (and that seems doubtful) the hotel will be a single row with a hallway hugging the office construction as well - while it may be less problematic than an apartment, a hotel room without windows would be very unprofitable (if even allowed by code, which also seems doubtful). Of course, a hotel has a lot of back-of-house operations that could use space between the hallway and the office portion, and so a well-designed hotel could make much better use of this configuration than an apartment building could.

I stayed in the Suites Hotel in Duluth a few weeks ago for a conference and my room was on the inside of the building with no windows. Had doors on each side to separate hallways that served rooms with windows. Obviously this was a retrofit of a cool old building with a massive footprint, and codes may have changed since then (plus I'm not sure on if that hotel got credits/grants/etc for re-use making cash flow possible). But I didn't mind the lack of windows for an $80/night price in a great location. I usually pull the curtains shut anyway

The Suites is nice, too bad they're booked about a million years into the future during nicer weather.

Sent from my phone

Wells Fargo towers Downtown East 3-11-15 by bapster2006, on Flickr

So, it looks like one more occupied floor to go above the tallest beams on the "tower" part...plus about 2 mechanical/decorative.

The windows are going in on the first floor of the west building.. and.. uh... see for yourself

WP_20150326_003 by grant.simons, on Flickr

It's like a yellowish teal

It's hard to tell from your pictures, but I suspect that's not the final finished material you're seeing.

Is it like wells Fargo gold/brass like all around their downtown building?

DSC_0967 by grant.simons, on Flickr
DSC_0968 by grant.simons, on Flickr

mrs.shoes and I drove past here last weekend and she said—and I'm not kidding—"Is that going to be a parking ramp? It looks like a parking ramp." Good one, WF!

Went over the Third Avenue Bridge tonight late, after most of the downtown lights were off. Going down Central toward the bridge, the Wells Fargo buildings are the only thing you see (partly because they're lit up inside right now); they're really going to change the vista from that area.

Is this at 15 floors? It KINDA looks like it's topping out, but that can't be true if it's only at floor 15.

In hindsight, 1.4 million SF being distributed this way downtown makes me want to cry a little, but the impact it's potentially having in greater DTE may more than make up for that.

Is this at 15 floors? It KINDA looks like it's topping out, but that can't be true if it's only at floor 15.

In hindsight, 1.4 million SF being distributed this way downtown makes me want to cry a little, but the impact it's potentially having in greater DTE may more than make up for that.

Developing downtown East over spaces in downtown West makes you want to cry? Really? Cause I kinda thought that creating an entire urban downtown of mixed use would be pretty neat. What do you have envisioned for downtown east if not 1.4 million SF ? Kinda a moot point but none the less I'm curious what others envision.

There's a piece of painted steel with a flag and christmas tree on it sitting in the lot behind the west tower. Must be topping out this week.

Will they begin construction on the shorter portions of the buildings that are located on the front and back of the towers after they are complete? I thought they were a part of the overall project, so I thought they would have begun constructing those portions along with the towers...