urbanMSP

Just checking in to see if there are any updates?

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/p ... l?page=all Keep an eye on agendas.... According to the Biz Journal on Feb. 21: Over the next two years, Sherman expects other developers will step forward with plans for almost all of the surface parking lots in the Downtown East area.
“I’m not even sure which blocks aren’t committed — maybe one or so,” Sherman said.
“What’s being discussed right now is primarily housing, with some first-floor retail, perhaps restaurants or convenience retail,” Sherman said. “You’ll probably see about 1,000 units to 1,200 proposed in the next 12 to 15 months.”
Sherman indicated his company’s projects will be announced gradually over the next few months.

That's a bold prediction, unless Sherman himself is planning on building 1,000 to 1,200 units. I have to say though that given the # of existing surface lots, 1,000-1,200 units actually seems like a low number for infill, especially considering that as the # of available lots starts to seriously dwindle land values will increase and development may need to be more intense to justify the expense.

Great find though!

if you're not counting Elliot park or mill city... there really aren't that many more lots in dte once the Ryan project and wilf lots and Sherman lots are spoken for.

Why wouldn't we count the Mills District? I always assumed DTE to be the area literally east of the core of downtown, even including Elliot Park, but I can see your point to exclude that n'hood now.

just because it's the only part of dte that isn't it's own self defined neighborhood. I feel like it's a bit of a separate entity with the most potential to be an extension of the cbd and have residential

The official outline of downtown East can be seen on Google Maps. Technically the only surface lots remaining are those scattered along Washington Ave - roughly three full city blocks.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Downt ... 2c050c2533

That still leaves nearly ten full blocks of surface parking in the Elliot Park neighborhood open for development.

A new mixed-use project from developer George Sherman, featuring apartments (filling a current parking lot and replacing a now-empty two story building) and a remake of the historic Thresher Square building into a hotel, with skyway connections (and prominent street-level access to the skyway) to the Downtown East developments.

http://www.startribune.com/housing/263918271.html

Niiiiice. Turning Thresher into a hotel, genius.

This looks like a good project. More strib stadium love though.

Talk about a building boom. This is getting ridiculous in a good way.

I would like that the height on the 3rd side was equal to the Thresher. But whatever.

Exactly.

I don't get it, this is just the picture from the article, right?

I feel like we're becoming so accustomed to mediocre (or even just downright poor) architectural design that nobody even cares that the apartments portion of this development is shamefully unimpressive.

In any case, I'm enthralled this lot could finally see some actual development, even if it's another stinker. I used to work just a block away from here, and the immediate environment really is the most awful in all of downtown. Glad to see more residents and retail coming to what used to be a parking lot black hole of sadness.

That's pretty aggressively mediocre.

Thanks Avian! I think its nice having the rendering in the thread itself sometimes, that way you don't always need to click on the link. Also in a lot of the threads that are multiple pages long, I like being able to just click on the first page and see the rendering or whatever. This is awesome though. It's really gonna help the Mill District and Downtown East come together. Great spot for a hotel too.

Edit: Also they're not planning on starting construction for at least another 8 months. I don't think we need to get too worried yet about a preliminary rendering that was put together in what looks like SketchUp Pro.

That's pretty aggressively mediocre.

Maybe this answers the question, "what does affordable luxury look like?"

Isn't there a larger change in elevation going from third to Washington? That skyway will be on the fourth floor on the north end.