urbanMSP

It's definitely "out of character" for the neighborhood...

I "mildly" like it. It is a well-kept mid-century building with a cool exterior pattern. The street level could be spruced up a bit, maybe a couple more trees added.

Given the bland sameness out of apartment projects in Uptown, I'd say this "out of character" building is a welcome respite from the corrugated steel and peel-and-stick windowed apartment buildings that are being slapped up.

Give me:


Over:


Any day!

I'm guilty of more than mildly liking the current SoN building but wouldn't argue of the redevelopment is really great.

I love the brut modernism and the street level would be easy to humanize.

Designed by Thorsen and Thorshov. There's another Thorshov building (w/ Cerny) under threat right now, the Public Service Center.

The "out of character with the neighborhood" thing was a joke poking fun at anti-development neighbors. I personally like the building quite a bit. I see no reason why it couldn't stay, possibly with the ground floor converted to retail. Then build some structured parking on the interior block, and there's plenty of space for two new residential buildings and some liner parcels.

L M A O

The Uptown Small Area Plan, which guides the neighborhood for developers, says the preferred height on those parcels is two to five stories.

I've always thought a smaller scale of Kansas City Live! would work great on that parcel. Have a few levels of bars and restaurants lining Humboldt and Holmes with a covered (maybe retractable?) courtyard in the center that faces Lake Street. Add in a 6 story apartment building along Holmes on the southern end of the block maybe another smaller apartment building or even offices on backside of the Humboldt half. Build the whole thing over district parking and make sure there is great activation along Lake and you would have an amazing, unique project.

That shuttered fourplex at 3245 Hennepin Ave has submitted plans to rehab

http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 196225.pdf

Looks nice. Are the upper-center window openings original? If so it would be a shame to fill them in. Ditto the window openings on the sides.

Are any of the windows themselves original?

The search function did not allow me to search for "Up Down" so not sure if it has a dedicated thread. But, Up Down Bar is planning an expansion:

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... oftop.html

The search function did not allow me to search for "Up Down" so not sure if it has a dedicated thread. But, Up Down Bar is planning an expansion:

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... oftop.html

This was actually always part of their original plan submitted to the City with an understanding that it'd be done in phases.

That house at 3453 Hennepin has been torn down:



(for this project: http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 192554.pdf)

Looks nice!

Here's a neat thing I spotted last weekend but forgot to post. There appears to be a small juice business in a Greenway-facing space in Elan (middle building with the fancy ped bridge). While it probably largely caters to residents of Elan and adjacent bro-plexes, it does appear to be open to the public. Anyone recall if this was always planned to be a commercial space? Or did they just decide to carve this out of the building's amenity space?

I saw that too and thought it was odd. They're going to get essentially zero foot traffic. I wonder what the rent is.

There was an amendment to their PUD to allow the conversion to a retail space. If you're a fan of the Greenway stop in, they're big supporters!

I feel like this is close enough to Uptown to warrant putting it here:

http://www.citypages.com/news/minnesota ... /420927384

Could people, I dunno, just not call things condos the way they do?

On one hand, yeah it's kinda annoying to see apartment developments incorrectly called "condos" derisively, more often than not in poorly-written City Pages articles and Facebook rants. On the other hand, it also seems like a regional lingo thing that we maybe object a-little-too-strongly when someone gets it "wrong"? In New York, don't they call everything "apartments", even when referring to owner-occupied or co-op units? Same for "flats" in the UK and elsewhere? Why do we feel so strongly here about making sure some reporter gets this distinction right?

But back to the main issue at hand - is this the first we've heard of this Lander project? Which parcels are we talking here? 3145 and 3149 Hennepin? If so, that is a great spot for a medium-sized project. 4 stories I'm guessing? Anything less would seem overly conservative, considering there have been 3.5 story buildings all over this area for 100 years (especially on Girard, across the alley).

I think this is the first time it's been officially discussed anywhere. I've heard people talking about it on Nextdoor and at the Hennepin Ave reconstruction meeting, so people have clearly known about it. 4 stories, retail on ground level.

I don't think it's really a regional lingo thing to call all apartments "condos" here. It’s a term specifically used derisively by people to refer to new construction that they don’t like/can’t afford.

Maybe its confirmation bias, but I can't think of any examples of people making that mistake while casting a development in a positive, or even neutral, light.

Plus, you know, for the past five years or more everything has been apartments. There's been less than one condo development per year, over that time.