RBC Gateway & Four Seasons - 37 stories - 519'

[Sacrelicio]

Conceptual massing usually doesn't show much accuracy other than how the mass of the building will look..

There is so much that can and most likely will be changed.

Yeah, no building ever looks just like the early conceptual renderings. Otherwise we'd have a bunch of gray buildings with no windows or doors, random trees, people walking on streets that don't exist, cars going the wrong way, neighboring buildings skewed and out of focus...

[trigonalmayhem]

That sounds pretty accurate for how things actually look. Maybe I need new glasses. /snark

But yeah, concepts and renderings never match reality. That still doesn't really excuse pulling a bait and switch for a parcel that had such high expectations placed on it. It's not a matter of some small architectural feature not making it from initial design to construction, it's a wholesale change in what the building and site are. Short of some basic similarities in massing it's barely recognizable as the same project. That's not OK by me.

[David Greene]

Agreed.

Sent from my Z958 using Tapatalk

[grant1simons2]

Council members question changes made to the new design

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis- ... 364304461/

[trigonalmayhem]

Seriously all the concerns the city used to eliminate the other proposals have come to pass on this one. Clearly they aren't any good say picking winners and need better criteria and a longer period for submissions. I'm glad the council sounds like it won't let this slide at least.

[Tiller]

#DuvalOrBust #FireTheUnitedProperties

[mattaudio]

All these people on the Strib comments begging for Duval, like it was a real thing.

[MNdible]

Reading through the comments on this site, the Strib isn't the only place where readers swallowed the Duval proposal hook, line, and sinker.

[mplser]

just curious, if it wasn't a real thing, then why would they submit the proposal?

[grant1simons2]

He didn't show his economic plan, but he was still partnered with some serious players.

[Nathan]

I could have submitted a proposal, that doesn't mean I was likely to be able to get what I proposed built. Duval had a pretty picture and some building experience but he didn't have any partners or financial viability behind him.

I mean look at the proposal that was actually selected. They selected it because it had finances in place and experience and the ability, and even THIS has been cheapened and shortened and scaled back. I don't want to know what kind of disappointment that would be happening if Duval came back with a 30 story basic tower after promising 900 ft.

[FISHMANPET]

Let's all remember why Duval was booted out of the process, which is that because he couldn't bring forward even the most basic proof that he had the financing lined up. Instead of submitting any documentation he wanted to have a meeting. This wasn't some conspiracy towards mediocrity, he couldn't prove he even had a chance at making it happen.

One of the things that Frey talked about at the CDRS meeting yesterday (the one mentioned in the article, where specifically the land sale was being discussed) is that he wasn't really happy with the RFP process because it kind of forced developers to over promise and then under deliver. Hopefully he has some ideas on improving that process and will do some work on that.

[twincitizen]

The high price United has agreed to pay for this parcel almost guarantees they won't be stripped of development rights anytime soon. They are asking for flexibility to reduce the currently shown 33-story building to 30-stories if market conditions warrant. The city isn't going to wage war over 3 measly stories and neither should any of you. It sounds like the city is willing to put up a fight over design issues, both on the tower (lighting, visual interest,etc) and especially on the ground. This project really has to be something special for the public, and that means on the ground. Whether it's 30, 33, or 36 stories makes little difference in the end. Also remember that the Mortenson and Doran proposals were for 31 and 30 stories, respectively.

And yes let's all please STFU about Duval's metaphorical business card.

[sushisimo]

Or, maybe we should STFU up but the City's vetting process. Or, let's just STFU about everything and turn this into a moderator blog.

[Nathan]

Also, let's put it this way. If a developer had the power and drive and money and ability to build a 900 ft building, they could do it wherever they wanted in the city. If not winning this rfp stopped them, that's a good sign it was never meant to be.

[trigonalmayhem]

Yeah let's just be clear that being disappointed by the watered down crap united is showing us now doesn't mean we think the Duval proposal is magically coming back or happening. But we kind of owe it to ourselves not to let this site be host to another interchangeable project just because united can grease some palms in a questionably rigged bidding process.

[MNdible]

To suggest that this project is equivalent to the Nic on 5th or something is really missing the forest for the trees.

1. Fully underground parking. This is huge!
2. Integration with the streetcar route -- maybe not exactly perfect, but still better than any other proposal.
3. Active public uses on some 80% of the block faces.
4. Public plaza connecting between the mall and the river.
5. Strong link between the street level and the skyway level.

We can debate about how disappointing the tower architecture is, or lighting treatments, or even how tall the tower is. But honestly, the tower is the least important part of this project.

[Sacrelicio]

To suggest that this project is equivalent to the Nic on 5th or something is really missing the forest for the trees.

1. Fully underground parking. This is huge!
2. Integration with the streetcar route -- maybe not exactly perfect, but still better than any other proposal.
3. Active public uses on some 80% of the block faces.
4. Public plaza connecting between the mall and the river.
5. Strong link between the street level and the skyway level.

We can debate about how disappointing the tower architecture is, or lighting treatments, or even how tall the tower is. But honestly, the tower is the least important part of this project.

Yeah I think major skyline additions are neat in a sense but the street level stuff is much more important in my mind. I guess I'm not much of a height or skyline fetishist. When I see huge towers in a skyline I don't think "Wow, that must be a great place to live!" But I do think that if I see examples of engaging streetscapes.

[trigonalmayhem]

So I'm supposed to get excited because of underground parking now? They actually made the streetcar integration look worse in this iteration by shifting it from mid block to the very corner where it's going to screw up pedestrian crossings and putting some weird center platform in. The tiny wedge left on the other side of the tracks hardly seems engaging or usable for anything more than a quick sit. The building doesn't touch most of the block face and the parts it does are half dominated by cars between the curb cut and double parking lanes. With the small amount of retail frontage I have no idea how you can call this 'active' on its block faces. As I said already, the way they've realigned the street car they've cut the plaza into two unusably small chunks and made actually walking from nicollet mall to the river more difficult because of the weird street corner issue. And one set of escalators doesn't really fix the skyway issue, especially when the weak plaza it faces is barely going to be usable and navigating to the entrance will be less than direct or obvious from any approach.

Tl;Dr: we can do way better than this and just because it's slightly better than nothing or the other crap that's been going up still doesn't excuse the bait and switch on the whole city run bidding process and promise of something 'iconic.'

[twincitizen]

I want to temper my earlier comment defending Untited (and the process) by saying that 150 apartments is pretty weak. Completely regardless of effects on height, increased/decreased hotel rooms, etc. there's really no reason they shouldn't be able to market 200-250 apartments at this location. If they think it's too big a burden, that tells me they think the market is already softening