Downtown Minneapolis - News & General Topics

[Silophant]

Vague recollection from touring a couple months ago is that it will be a party room or something for residents. I remember being disappointed that it wouldn't be a public-facing business, at least.

[grant1simons2]

Hennepin Theater Trust looks to acquire and renovate the Solera building. I wonder if this will allow them to vacate their space in City Center

http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 183719.pdf

[acs]

What a complete waste.

[BBMplsMN]

It makes sense for Hennepin Theatre Trust to take over that building. It puts their offices closer to the theaters that they manage. Plus, the addition of another performance space (probably about a 200 seat, flexible space) would be a great addition. Tho I imagine they would close the similarly-sized New Century Theater in City Center. The building is just too big for a standard restaurant to use.

[BoredAgain]

The building is just too big for a standard restaurant to use.

If only there were a way to divide a building so that it could be used for more than just one thing.

[xandrex]

As this tweet points out, it brings the building's property tax revenue down from $111k to $0

https://twitter.com/mplsgilyard/status/ ... 4761522176

[grant1simons2]

Tempted to speak against this..

[uncle phil]

Hodges must be against this...she was really against losing property tax revenue for the proposed United FC stadium.

[BBMplsMN]

Is it losing or shifting? They already have offices and a performance space downtown that they would be leaving vacant for a potential for profit company.

[Silophant]

They're renting that space in privately-owned City Center, though. Do CCs taxes go down if they rent space to a nonprofit?

[amiller92]

Don't think there is a thread for the 3rd Ave work, but it seems that in addition to getting rid of the planted medians so we could keep an unneeded travel lane, they are also cutting down street trees next to HCGC:

[mnmike]

This is something about Mpls that really irritates me...they say that they want to add a lot more greenery, but then we are constantly taking out trees left and right. Each street reconstruction they just clear cut all of the somewhat mature trees...same with pretty much every new development. They recently commissioned a study (they are real good at doing that) that showed it is taking a toll on the tree canopy.

I am sure with the upcoming re-do of Washington, and Hennepin we will see the same...clear cutting of a lot of nice disease resistant Elms and Honey Locust that have finally started to grow in nicely, along with some very mature Honey Locust along Washington. Just annoying. Outside of heavily residential areas, it is almost like the city doesn't even ever consider the trees to be permanent or take into account their age...they just seem to look at them as temporary place holders for the next round of saplings.

[mnmike]

PS, in this case, are they actually cutting down street trees in order to build bigger planters?! How does that even make sense? If that is the case, could've just left the trees right in the middle of the new planting area.

[seanrichardryan]

Those trees were tiny, and half of those in the planters are dead.

[mnmike]

Those trees were decent, much more established than anything they will be replaced by...and along Washington there are many healthy trees...in the median and on the sides. Many of the Honey Locust on Henn are in good shape too. It is that kind of attitude that irritates me. "Just take em all out and replace them", with no evaluation. Speaking about how the city handles street trees in and around downtown in general.

[seanrichardryan]

New large irrigated planter with trees, perennials & bike lane > 9 spindly Honey Locust in tree coffins

[mnmike]

In this case, true enough....

We will see what they do on the other streets mentioned. If they take out the mature trees on Washington and replace them with something like this....would be worse in that case.

[seanrichardryan]

Did the Crossings Condominiums get painted Cheetos orange over the weekend? This photo from the strib is weird.

http://www.startribune.com/key-post-vik ... 390116941/

[Silophant]

That's just what it looks like at sunset. The Golden Hour and all that.

[Nathan]

Sunrise?