urbanMSP

I'm going to wager that Hy-Vee could very well be the grocery store. They just opened one in downtown Des Moines that's 35,000 sq feet in a similar development. A lot of their stores are 80,000+ sq feet and if they want to get into the city of Minneapolis, they'll have to go smaller.

Des Moines project: http://www.urbandsm.com/downtown/420-court-hy-vee

http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 192028.pdf
Whoa the grocery store is 48k sf? Yeah this probably isn't Fresh Thyme (~30k at most) or anything of the sort. 48k is not much smaller than some more recent Cub Foods have been. Not sure Cub would go just 2 miles down the road from their HiLake location unless they are that committed to boxing Hyvee out of the market. It almost has to be one of those two. It's definitely not Lunds, and I don't think Kowalski's is really expanding, nor would they open so close to Lunds (Highland Park). It's too big to be Aldi/TJ/Fresh Thyme, so that pretty much leaves Hyvee and Cub.

Note: Oppidan recently built a 60k sf Cub in White Bear Lake: http://www.presspubs.com/white_bear/new ... 288eb.html . They are also building the Fresh Thyme anchored development in SLP, and they built the Kowalski's in Excelsior, making this one tough to predict.

I also noted the presence of a pharmacy in the plans - which helps to narrow who it might be a bit. Hy-Vee is also looking to open 25 stores by 2020.

They label 'cornhole' on plans now?

smh

Whole Foods?

^Whole Foods doesn't have any pharmacies (to my knowledge), which the plans show. Area probably doesn't match Whole Foods' target demo.

This is really exciting. I was looking over the plans, and I can't tell if there will be an entrance for the grocery store on 46 street?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If it's a usable grocery store, this will reduce the number of trips I have to take across the border to St. Paul (shudder).

Kidding aside, I will not miss the Highland Park Lunds & Byerly's clientele.

Can anyone with experience watching these kinds of projects give any inclination of how sure this is to becoming a reality? And what sorts of means of communication are used to announce progress? I was at the community meeting at the Longfellow Rec Center, but I didn't really get a sense of how far past the initial planning stage they were and what real life obstacles there are to clear before it's a done deal and construction starts.

Well they've submitted to the City Planning Commission Committee of the Whole which means they're serious here. Going to CoW is basically an informal conversation between the developer and the Planning Commission before they formally submit plans for approval.

Hard to say if they're going to CoW to get their final ducks in a row before submitting formal plans (which means they probably have financing lined up) or they're going to figure out how much they're going to have to change their vision before they go out and try and find the financing for the project.

To get to the nearest entrance, users of the closest transit station (A-Line) have to walk down an alley past a loading dock?

And the alignment on 47th Street direct to Hwy 55 needs straightening. Get those blocks lined up.

Entrances by Matt Brillhart, on Flickr

I see two primary entrances, and possibly a secondary entrance through the pharmacy. Coming from the A Line (and really from all points east, west and north), it would make the most sense to walk along 46th Street to the pharmacy entrance or around the corner to the Snelling Ave entrance. Walking in the alley is probably not the best choice. I could see traffic in the alley picking up quite a bit if eastbound motorists choose to exit via the alley, rather than via Snelling Ext (westbound motorists must use Snelling Ext)

If this is the general site layout they're gonna go with, a concern/suggestion would be to make that Snelling Ave entrance as "primary" as possible, because that's where the majority of the ped/transit traffic will arrive. If possible, I would move that residential entrance off the corner and put a combined store/pharmacy entrance there, and make it as "primary" as possible (though the parking lot entrance with the cart corrals and such will always be the true primary entrance)

Can't really share how I know this, but looks as though this will be a new urban Cub Foods at this location. I'll be curious to learn more - as this will likely be our new grocery store. Although we were really hoping for a Fresh Thyme.

Until Cub abandons their awful branding and 'warehouse' styling, there will be no such thing a an 'urban Cub Foods'.

Until Cub abandons their awful branding and 'warehouse' styling, there will be no such thing a an 'urban Cub Foods'.

You haven't even seen what they're going to do with this space so how can you make such a denigrating statement?

And urban style cub foods would be awesome!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In case anyone's interested, another community meeting is planned for this Thursday, 2/23, 630p to 830p at the Hiawatha School Rec Center.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1329115757183180/

At the meeting, a lot more people here tonight. Pretty tense at the beginning already.

Still no official word of who will fill the grocery store space. The anti-development crowd was there in force and a bit more hostile this time, IMO. There were some in favor, but they generally kept quiet as the complainers took over the meeting.

As one of the people said at the beginning, open house was the wrong format for a crowd of that size. It should have been an organized presentation that mostly kept people in their seats. And yeah, there were a couple hotheads (all over 65) who tried to dominate the meeting. The olds were out in force. Other than the few folks who live on that block of Minnehaha Ave, whose concerns about alley traffic and whatnot are legitimate, the rest were all just mindlessly bitching about "traffic".

It kinda sounded like this has a ways to go in terms of refinement before we'll see it back at the Planning Commission. Not necessarily the mixed-use building itself, but some of the site concepts like the Snelling Ave extension (and new stoplight), land swaps with the city, the trail / green space, etc. One thing the guy from Oppidan mentioned was that they needed to finalize those access changes before a grocery store could commit.

Haven't heard a whole lot about this project lately but here it is, up for Planning Commission approval next Monday 7/17: http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 201736.pdf (54MB file)

And here's the small restaurant building that will be just west of the 5-story building: http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 201735.pdf