Former Thrivent Building (now Hennepin) & Sora Apartments Block

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acs
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Former Thrivent Building (now Hennepin) & Sora Apartments Block

Postby acs » October 13th, 2014, 4:07 pm

Mod Note: This thread is for the existing Thrivent Building (now owned by Hennepin County) and the new parking ramp/apartment building proposed beside it. Discussion of the new HQ building proposed across 5th Ave goes here.


http://www.startribune.com/business/279052521.html

Another one bites the dust (Surface lots that is).

Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq being hired by Thrivent financial to conduct a land use study for the two parking lots it owns near their headquarters. Apparently there are businesses and investors already interested in the sites.

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Re: Current & Proposed Downtown Minneapolis Projects

Postby Anondson » October 13th, 2014, 5:31 pm

Thrivent exploring options for its parking lot behind since downtown east has such momentum and apparent demand.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -sale.html

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Re: Current & Proposed Downtown Minneapolis Projects

Postby twincitizen » October 14th, 2014, 2:03 pm

Image

The Biz Journal article linked above included this map, which highlights the Thrivent properties in yellow. Not highlighted is the half-block parking lot they own adjacent to their building. Presumably, they'd like to control that piece long term (sadly, probably as a parking lot long-term). Blue represents currently planned residential development. If Stanton's 15-story condo building sells quickly (#8 on the map), perhaps he'll look into doing another one on the other 1/4 of that block. As for the full-block Thrivent Property, I have no idea, but I doubt it will be office. If Opus can't build spec office space on the Ritz block, on property they've owned for 30 years, I sure as heck don't see it penciling out here. This isn't a great location for multi-tenant office space.


For those who are interested, there was an older "Thrivent Blocks" topic on urbanmsp, but it was so full of dumb I locked it and split off this new one. The old topic is here: https://forum.streets.mn/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1102 There are a few posts in there worth reading.

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Re: Current & Proposed Downtown Minneapolis Projects

Postby mattaudio » October 14th, 2014, 2:16 pm

Before we saw the Yard concept develop on the block north of the Armory, I always thought this block would be a great park for Downtown East. It could have had a cut-through greenway to Chicago Ave S, helping to tie the "medical corridor" to downtown. Here's an old map from 2011. http://goo.gl/maps/X2uZT

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Re: Current & Proposed Downtown Minneapolis Projects

Postby HiawathaGuy » October 14th, 2014, 2:27 pm

I just have to say that it's super exciting to think of all the proposed and possible plans happening downtown at this time! I can't think of another City of our size (maybe Seattle) that has this happening. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems Minneapolis is certainly fairing very well.

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Nathan
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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby Nathan » October 15th, 2014, 11:56 am

It would be nice if they would sell their block to multiple developers... it looks like it's already divided up, like maybe two developments with a park down the middle. That's probably not where the money is though.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby HiawathaGuy » October 15th, 2014, 12:02 pm

It would be nice if they would sell their block to multiple developers... it looks like it's already divided up, like maybe two developments with a park down the middle. That's probably not where the money is though.
I agree, these whole-block developments tend to be hard to do well.
Also, I noticed that the two NE parcels on this block are not owned by Thrivent - I thought that was odd. I guess they could just be working with Thrivent to secure possibilities for the whole block. But none of the press mentioned that there were other owners.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby ndokken » October 16th, 2014, 9:30 am

as a Thrivent employee and the communication I received internally, I do know that Thrivent will be very selective as to what get's developed there, if anything at all. They will ensure it not only complements the revitalization efforts, but also makes sense to the employees and the members. I sure hope that if they were to sell the land, that they do not decide on having a developer build JUST a parking ramp.

But it's all speculative from here on out until something becomes official. Either way I am very excited about it.

disclaimer: This post is entirely my own personal viewpoint/opinion and is in no way, shape or form an official communication from Thrivent Financial.

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Munch'n
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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby Munch'n » April 12th, 2015, 12:44 pm

Kliff posted this on the Downtown east thread

https://imgur.com/8NidLl4

Seems like it's up for sale
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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby Wedgeguy » April 12th, 2015, 2:44 pm

I thought Thrivent had already put them up for sale over a year ago. Maybe they were just testing the water to see if they could jointly redevelop some of it. Selling now because they did not get the interest that they had hoped for. Helping develop a building or two that could have given them some cash flow off them would have been ideal.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby grant1simons2 » April 12th, 2015, 3:55 pm

Well the study is most likely done by Cushman wake so now the site goes up for sale to see who they get some interest from.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby mattaudio » April 26th, 2016, 8:13 am

Moving discussion here instead of the Portland Tower block. Whatever happens - and I could care less if it's 10 floors or 100 for that matter - the Kraus-Anderson full-block project has shown us that there is absolutely no need for a parking podium in this part of town (Portland Tower's podium excepted, since that's a quarter block project). The Thrivent full parking block MUST have underground parking (or no parking at all, but that won't happen) rather than a podium.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby RailBaronYarr » March 23rd, 2017, 3:08 pm

http://finance-commerce.com/2017/03/is- ... east-town/
The financial services company paid $2.16 million in cash for about a half-acre of the 2.5-acre parking lot adjacent to its headquarters at 625 Fourth Ave. S., according to a certificate of real estate value made public on Tuesday. Thrivent already owned most of the parking lot. The purchase gives it control of space it had leased at 600, 610 and 618 Portland Ave. S.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby Silophant » July 11th, 2017, 6:54 pm

ESG presented the plans today for the redevelopment of the lot adjacent to this building. Probably unsurprisingly for a financial services firm, they're taking the conservative route and insisting that they will forever need 600 dedicated downtown parking spots for their building in the single best square mile of the state for alternative transportation, soo.... it's a 600-stall parking ramp, wrapped in 50ish units of stickbuilt housing, with retail on the first floor and a skyway link to whatever eventually goes in across the street. Not terribly inspiring, but not awful either, I suppose.

The better news is that they implied that there's been significant developer interest in the remainder of the surface lots, and this development will fulfill their perceived parking need enough that they'll let them go, hopefully for something cool.

Image

Photo shamelessly stolen from Nick's twitter, as mine didn't turn out.
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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby Anondson » July 11th, 2017, 8:00 pm

Is the ramp going to be built to later add something on top, like had been awkwardly done on that ramp on LaSalle and 8th? I mean, I’m scraping for something here...

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby Silophant » July 11th, 2017, 8:52 pm

It isn't. That was asked, and they said that they didn't want to waste space on an unused elevator core and so on.

I guess my take on it is that it is, objectively, shit. If Thrivent had decided they could join 2017 and not need 600 dedicated parking spots to give out to every middle manager or whatever they do with them, and had just sold the lot to a developer to do whatever they wanted with, and the developer had come up with this, I'd be outraged. But... Thrivent, at least at this time, feels they do need those spots, and need them badly enough to ignore whatever offers they got for their 1.75 blocks of downtown surface parking for the past few years. While there are obviously better ways to incorporate 600 extra parking spots into a half-block mixed-use development, a ramp wrapped in apartments is significantly better than a naked ramp. If this opportunity falls short, and the full block gets developed into another 222 Hennepin, then, yeah, that's disastrous. But, if this opportunity falls short, and the full block winds up more like the K-A block? I'll take that trade.
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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby grrdanko » July 11th, 2017, 9:00 pm

Forgive me for my ignorance, but is this proposed for the entire lot across 5th from Thrivant Financial?

From the picture it looks like there is a Skyway connection on the east and west sides of the building. Does that mean that the Hennepin County Medical Center will be connected to the Skyway? I guess that's a silver lining. I'm disappointed. This is the perfect location for a 100 story building

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby mattaudio » July 12th, 2017, 8:03 am

It's almost like Thrivent could give employees a transportation buyout, possibly scaled for seniority and business need, and then they wouldn't need to spend what is likely $15 to $20 million on a parking ramp.

Thrivent actually used to be fairly progressive with parking policy, moving towards a more market-based system about 15 years ago (I have an article about it in my Evernote but cannot seem to find it right now).

That said, I think this would be passable if the lot across the street was developed at the same time with minimal/zero above ground parking. It's a full block, so they should be able to do below ground parking if needed at all. But the bigger problem here is the "Fifth Avenue Wall of Ramps" that create traffic disasters during afternoon rush as motorists leave all the ramps.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby SurlyLHT » July 12th, 2017, 8:12 am

That the city is going to be taking down a nearby ramp for their new consolidated building may have played into Thrivent's plans. Everything seems connected. That a skyway may be extending toward HCMC is really exciting.

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Re: Thrivent's Surface Parking Lots

Postby mattaudio » July 12th, 2017, 8:15 am

That a skyway may be extending toward HCMC is really exciting.
No.

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