urbanMSP

Washington Avenue refuses to stop happening, even with the pandemic. There's a presentation scheduled for the DMNA LUC meeting on Sept 1st for a new residential tower adjacent to 240 Hennepin. It's intended to be 27 stories, and 400+ units, with parking on the interior of the block and retail and live-work spaces fronting the streets.

According to the property tax map, both the Dolphin Staffing building and the parking lot behind are owned by 17 WASHINGTON PROP OWNER LLC C/O CA RESIDENTIAL LLC, so presumably both properties are included. I'd imagine the retail would be on the Washington frontage, and the live-work units would be on 3rd St (which sounds awful, but whatever).

Architect better take inspiration from the Dophin Staffing building, that's all I'm saying.

I get that a lot of architecture fans seem to be interested in that building, but I'll be very happy to see it go. It's street-presence is so deadening and terrible, with the tuck under surrounded by shrubbery.

I get that a lot of architecture fans seem to be interested in that building, but I'll be very happy to see it go. It's street-presence is so deadening and terrible, with the tuck under surrounded by shrubbery.

Realistically it would be very easy to make the street presence better. (And not be painted a terrible color)

There are only so many decent modernist buildings in the city so yeah definitely interested in preservation of the idea or style of it can't be saved.

With the building rising at the Hennepin corner stepped back from Washington, supposedly to not obstruct views of the Gateway tower across Hennepin, it’ll be interesting if this proposal has anything to step back similarly or not.

I wonder if 240 Hennepin's stepback from Washington wasn't done with this future tower in mind, to let it stand out along Washington. (They're both CA Ventures, though they have different architects.) The "we don't want to obstruct views of a different tower that hasn't even been built yet" explanation seemed a little strange to me.

It's kinda of hard to imagine this area had a car dealership seemingly not terribly long ago? Okay maybe it has been awhile and I'm finally getting old. Anyhow far lots and a dealership to towers is a huge change. North Loop and the Mill District have seen change, but this is something else.

Is this enough change to make it so the Gateway gets its own neighborhood identity?

Or will it still end up an in between-other-neighborhoods place?

The portion northwest of Nicollet should be in pretty good shape after this, 240 Hennepin, and Gateway Tower are done, but there's still a bunch of nothing (except Penny's) between Nicollet and 3rd, and not much hope for more.

Here's a (locked) Bizjournals article about the project. No new info on the project itself, but apparently 21st Century Bank is moving it's operational headquarters to Roseville (lame) and its retail functions to Riverplace, which is interesting.

I suppose it's too much to hope that ESG will get really creative on this tower. This could be a serious reinforcement of the sense of the Hennepin Washington interesection really being a gateway to downtown a major point of passage on the Washington corridor. I'm surprised that CA Ventures is moving so quickly on this project but nothing much seems to be happening with the project they took over at 200 Central. I'm wondering what thy are reading in the market that would lead them in this direction. Are the new developments in North East filling more slowly than anticipated?

This may not be the reason for them, but think of it this way. There are a lot of unknowns right now. With Covid, and whether downtown Minneapolis is a safe place to live/work. So this may cause a lot of developers to hit the pause button. Now, a project like this will take at least 2 years to complete. And by that time, all this crap should be all figured out. Hopefully Covid is a thing of the past, and downtown is thriving. At that point, developers start to jump back in. But they all have 2 years to build. These projects would be opening without any competition.

Via Rhett Carlson:

- 27 stories
- 429 units
- 368 parking stalls (39 for commercial)
- 3 live/work units fronting 3rd St
- 4,800 sf retail
- parking interfaced with under construction 270 Hennepin
- green roof/amenity deck tucked mid-block

The design is one of ESG's better ones, looks like they've taken the rusted steel and glass aesthetic that Hines VE'd out of North Loop Green and applied it here. The pattern of the glass panels would also add some nice texture to the building. We'll see what makes it to the end, CA Ventures wasn't adverse to some design cuts on the 240 Hennepin project, I assume they'll do the same here.

The IZ options for this project should be (lmk if I did this wrong):
- 34 units affordable at 60% AMI, or
- 17 units affordable at 30% AMI, or
- 85 units affordable at 50% AM with city assistance

I like this. It’ll be have a more direct view to it when coming from the Hennepin bridge into downtown, I’d like to see a view from there.

From what I can tell with the site plans, it looks like access to the non-surface parking spaces must be accessed through the circulation of the 240 Hennepin project. My guess is that the new amenity deck will also be shared with 240 Hennepin.

I think this is the best looking residential tower in the area. All of new towers on that end of Nicollet severely lack imagination.

Architect better take inspiration from the Dophin Staffing building, that's all I'm saying.

Wait a minute, I'm out of the loop, I know there is construction on the adjacent lot, but is there something happening with that building too?

EDIT, nevermind I'm an idiot.

really like this design. thankful developers keeping faith in downtown in spite of the fear mongering going on in our pathetic local media.

Architect better take inspiration from the Dophin Staffing building, that's all I'm saying.

Looks like your prayers were heard lol

It doesn't matter how much op-ed ink is spilt claiming that "The Millennials" are on the verge of abandoning cities.

The financiers are the ones who continue taking the risk and putting up the money for construction, so I'm going to listen to them instead of suburban real estate boosters or developers like Doran who is angry about his margins getting thinned by affordable housing.