Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Downtown - North Loop - Mill District - Elliot Park - Loring Park
twincitizen
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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby twincitizen » March 21st, 2021, 10:14 pm

In a first step towards fixing the grid in this area, Border Avenue will be extended down to Glenwood: https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/co ... 227378.pdf (last page of PDF)

grant1simons2
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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby grant1simons2 » March 22nd, 2021, 1:41 pm

No bump outs? No bike facilities from Glenwood?

Look, I'm not asking for world class here, just a recognition that we've done a pretty bad job of redoing our streets in and around downtown so far. The North Loop "pedestrian improvement" was a minuscule upgrade, especially along 1st St, where the crossing distance is still a cause for anxiety.

This is a brand new street, which means new opportunities to make a comfortable experience outside of the un-walkable confines this will exist in. If we need to maintain truck traffic, East Lyndale to Cesar Chavez should be used as an entrance point. We won't need bike facilites if a calm street with bump outs, smaller ROW and street trees exist, but this design will allow for cars to still speed around the corner from Glenwood and increase speed straight past the farmers market.

The design for Royalston is already bad enough, do we really want to keep putting money into something that will feel dated when finished?

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Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Anondson » September 19th, 2022, 11:16 pm

Xcel campus proposal for the next 100 years wants their 11 acre campus east on 94 and adjacent to the regional trail to be a … 4 story office for the service crews.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... pment.html

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Bakken2016 » September 20th, 2022, 8:56 am

Xcel campus proposal for the next 100 years wants their 11 acre campus east on 94 and adjacent to the regional trail to be a … 4 story office for the service crews.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... pment.html
A bit lackluster...

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Silophant » September 21st, 2022, 10:26 pm

So Chestnut is my current office, until the (also lackluster) Marshall/St Anthony Parkway facility is complete.

It's not what I would build from scratch on this site, to be sure, but at the same time, there's gotta be a central location in the west metro for crews to dispatch out of to keep the lights on. Additionally, the oil labs located at Chestnut cannot be moved anywhere else - processing PCB contaminated oil is a rarity these days, but no other city will give Xcel a permit, so it's gotta happen where they're grandfathered in.

But! This plan doesn't modify anything south of Chestnut, except for reconfiguring the parking lot a bit. I think there's reason to be optimistic that a future project will consolidate that quite a bit and sell off part of that space and the parking lot across Linden for redevelopment.
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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Oreos&Milk » October 4th, 2022, 5:43 am

Xcel campus proposal for the next 100 years wants their 11 acre campus east on 94 and adjacent to the regional trail to be a … 4 story office for the service crews.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... pment.html
A bit lackluster...
it's an improvement...

However, that entire area has so much potential!!! From Cedar Lake Trail / Glendwood Ave to 394 / 94 that could be redeveloped into one massive development 20-30 floor towers with could build a skyway to bypass the street level shelter traffic or what.. It would have direct trail access, walking distance to a green line station, walking distance to downtown, farmers market, lorning park, and other important destinations. Even walking to downtown L&B.

Ok.. maybe a bit to much fantasy..

Xcel could have AT LEAST designed somthing where they could have sold the air rights so a developer could develop on top of their campus right? Maybe even that is to much fantasy as well.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » November 8th, 2022, 9:33 am

Cool prefab housing manufacturing facility coming to Royalston https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities ... inneapolis

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby mister.shoes » November 8th, 2022, 11:13 pm

Devean George is awesome.
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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby MNdible » November 9th, 2022, 11:56 am

While this is a cool project, it's kind of a bummer that this will preclude any large scale redevelopment of this area.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby martykoessel » November 9th, 2022, 1:34 pm

In this era of increased homelessness and an acute shortage of affordable housing, something like this that addresses the problem takes priority over sexier projects. I love what Devean George is attempting. May he succeed and them some!

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby alexschief » November 9th, 2022, 4:27 pm

While this is a cool project, it's kind of a bummer that this will preclude any large scale redevelopment of this area.
Wouldn't worry about it. (1) It's good to have jobs near transit, (2) these jobs will be making more housing elsewhere possible, (3) there's plenty of nearby lots to redevelop before getting to this one, (4) and the lifespan of a factory is not so long these days, so if the demand for high density housing gets too hot around there in 10-15 years, I doubt it'll be a major obstacle.

And in the near term, this project brings good jobs and activity to a corner of the downtown that needs it.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » November 17th, 2022, 9:54 am

Update on the Devean George modular housing factory, including that additional financing is still needed to get things up and running. https://www.startribune.com/19m-modular ... fresh=true

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Bob Stinson's Ghost » November 17th, 2022, 12:30 pm

It may replace some of the blue collar employment lost by Graco's departure. The fact that we've seen a little disappointment upthread that there is not a concrete and steel apartment tower being built on this site once again begs the question of where the proper place for a factory is. Out in the cornfields, where everybody drives cars to work? I see a lot of brand new car dependent sprawl being built around factories up in Rogers.

Back in 1950 when Minneapolis' population was over half a million there were a *lot* of factories operating within the boundaries of the city.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Trademark » November 17th, 2022, 12:41 pm

It may replace some of the blue collar employment lost by Graco's departure. The fact that we've seen a little disappointment upthread that there is not a concrete and steel apartment tower being built on this site once again begs the question of where the proper place for a factory is. Out in the cornfields, where everybody drives cars to work? I see a lot of brand new car dependent sprawl being built around factories up in Rogers.

Back in 1950 when Minneapolis' population was over half a million there were a *lot* of factories operating within the boundaries of the city.
To second what you've said as I'm looking for a new job I've seen plenty of job postings that pay really good but require you to go up to Rogers which would force me to get a car. It would make a ton of sense to put in a commuter rail spur to connect the Blue Line to Osseo and Rogers (and even Monticello) similar to how the DCTA A-Train Commuter Rail near Dallas connects to the light rail. But knowing how negotiations happened with the Blue Line and that rail corridor it seems nearly impossible for that to happen.

Even a regular bus route that could stop at Downtown Minneapolis, Brooklyn Center Transit Center, Maple Grove Transit Center on Elm Creek, and the Parkway Transit Center on Maple Grove Parkway before continuing up to Rogers would likely get a lot of utilization and reduce redundancies of the 760, 781, 784, and 785 bus routes.

I attached a quick scribble of what it could look like below. Non-stop driving time is 49 minutes so with a minute for each stop an hour end to end seems reasonable.
Last edited by Trademark on November 17th, 2022, 12:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby MNdible » November 17th, 2022, 12:56 pm

It's a totally valid question, but I guess I'd argue that no modern factory is going to have the jobs per square foot that would justify it locating in such a prime, central location.

I mean, I get it -- this building is currently available, and apparently at attractive enough rents to make it work. But long term, there's definitely a higher and better use for this land. Maybe it's affordable precisely because people understand that it won't be available long term, although the article does indicate a "long term lease," whatever that means.

I don't know what vacancy rates look like, but there definitely are industrial buildings which are still accessible by transit or biking that aren't located in this central location.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » November 17th, 2022, 3:28 pm

It may replace some of the blue collar employment lost by Graco's departure. The fact that we've seen a little disappointment upthread that there is not a concrete and steel apartment tower being built on this site once again begs the question of where the proper place for a factory is. Out in the cornfields, where everybody drives cars to work? I see a lot of brand new car dependent sprawl being built around factories up in Rogers.

Back in 1950 when Minneapolis' population was over half a million there were a *lot* of factories operating within the boundaries of the city.
Is Graco cutting jobs? My understanding is they're just adding new jobs elsewhere instead of expanding in Minneapolis.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Silophant » November 18th, 2022, 10:25 am

One advantage to having this factory in operation for a decade or two could be to reserve the LRT-adjacent plot until there's enough development pressure to ensure that we really do get the highest and best use of the land, rather than whatever someone's willing to build right now. I think that would be preferable to the Mill District situation, where there's now clearly demand for 10+ story residential buildings, but several blocks are occupied by (still pretty new) four-story apartment buildings wrapped around parking ramps.
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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby Nick » November 18th, 2022, 10:38 am

I wonder long those will stick around? Some are condos, but not outside the realm of possibility someone might buy one or two of the apartment buildings and tear them down to build a larger building. It's not even the building heights, some of those buildings look to be like 50 units on a half block. Can't really blame anyone for building that way in 2005 but still feels like a real missed opportunity now.
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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby twincitizen » November 18th, 2022, 3:12 pm

While it sucks that the City won't be able to re-arrange the streets in the way envisioned in the long-term station area vision, having a local developer own the property is the next best thing to the City acquiring it themselves. In a way, maybe that frees up city resources to focus on acquiring other smaller properties around this district, particularly those needed for other street grid connections and properties with driveways onto current street segments that could be removed/realigned in the future.

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Re: Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

Postby MNdible » November 18th, 2022, 3:28 pm

Everybody loves this, so I'll just let it go. But one last point is that a facility like this is going to generate an unusually large number of semi-trailer trips (since what they're fabricating will be material intensive and bulky when completed). The good news is that these trips will presumably be on Border Avenue (not Royalston where the LRT stop is), but still it's not great for redevelopment of surrounding land.


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