urbanMSP

Hey! There are LEED certified parking garages!

... above a massive parking ramp.

Incorrect, it's on the sliver of grass on the south side of the parking ramp. Facts still matter. Their exercise was about making a Class-A downtown office building Net Zero, they don't own that ramp, nor was this an exercise about making everyone who works in the building be Net Zero in life.

... above a massive parking ramp.

Incorrect, it's on the sliver of grass on the south side of the parking ramp. Facts still matter. Their exercise was about making a Class-A downtown office building Net Zero, they don't own that ramp, nor was this an exercise about making everyone who works in the building be Net Zero in life.

Yikes.

They own (or otherwise have access to) the air rights to the ramp. The building will literally be built above the ramp. Nobody is saying it's a bad thing that they want to build a net zero building, obviously it's a great thing. Only that it's ironic that it would rise above a massive parking ramp. It's a good illustration of our society-wide blindness to the environmental harm caused by our car dependency.

... above a massive parking ramp.

Incorrect, it's on the sliver of grass on the south side of the parking ramp. Facts still matter. Their exercise was about making a Class-A downtown office building Net Zero, they don't own that ramp, nor was this an exercise about making everyone who works in the building be Net Zero in life.

Yikes.

They own (or otherwise have access to) the air rights to the ramp. The building will literally be built above the ramp. Nobody is saying it's a bad thing that they want to build a net zero building, obviously it's a great thing. Only that it's ironic that it would rise above a massive parking ramp. It's a good illustration of our society-wide blindness to the environmental harm caused by our car dependency.

I was under the impression they were only looking to build a small slim building on the sliver adjacent to the ramp - my apologies. After digging back to job my memory, it seems as though their last rendering, from 2 years ago, featured a building that encompassed the ramp.

Their recent news release didn't talk about the layout of the Net Zero building, so I thought it was just for the small open lot. I agree with the society-wide blindness, I hope the next century can change that - before it's too late.

last piece of The Commons puzzle finally making a move: https://twitter.com/MSPBJnews/status/14 ... 9696249858

last piece of The Commons puzzle finally making a move: https://twitter.com/MSPBJnews/status/14 ... 9696249858

Went by on the train today. Site is fenced off and there was a big drilling(?) truck and a couple flatbeds.

Maybe the last part of the original Commons vision, but in my book nothing is finished until the southern edge is comparably developed. Not The Armory of course, but I would very much like to see the replacement of the Government Center parking ramp, the Hennepin Co. JDC building, and the Vikings Longhouse.

Don't the Wilf's/Vikings have some preposterous long, super controlling & super cheap lease on the land the Longhouse sits on?

It would be great to get that entire block redeveloped but that would like require the relocation of the ME building which currently doesn't seem to have any momentum.

Hold off on redeveloping the ME building until we can build an LRT tunnel under 6th St and use that lot to transition to the existing 4th St alignment IMO.

The new Hennepin ME facility in Minnetonka recently opened. Not sure what or if the county has anything planned for the old building. I vaguely remember discussion about possibly selling to the Wilfs or MSFA, but that might have just been a passing note in an article and not an actual plan in the works.