urbanMSP

"I might break from those who think the street presence isn't great. Maybe the renderings are masking how awful the materials might be, but more important to me is the somewhat neat addition of the stacked balconies along all elevations, with the lowest of each also being an entrance. Feels somewhat like a Boston Triple Decker built into a 4-story apartment facade. The SW courtyard/parking opening is a bit large, but I dunno, not a deal breaker for me."

I think the building faces on Franklin and facing the park are pretty bland, there is one small entrance on park side but their are stoops/balconies - our last suggestion was to at least try to break it up these ends of the building with some additional different color. I would have loved to have seen a community room facing the park on ground floor, possibly one that public could access during day time hours - but that community space is buried in middle heart of the buildings instead.

The openings on Emerald and Berry are there at the mostly at urging of the neighborhood I believe, as the original plan was two long rectangles with no breaks on Berry or Emerald that looked very monolithic and fortress like to us - that's a long block of building not to have some variation.

Demo has started on the site. I hope someone is salvaging the big timber from the warehouses.

Some pictures of the demo - seems they are demo-ing only the St. Paul city park land - the middle of the site and the curved RR track path part of the park land that connects the main square park area in middle of site and goes down south towards Wabash/Eustis.

I also put in a photo of the RR aligment off site - where the old RR runs to RR overpass of 280 - which I hope someday can be a bike trail/bridge connection to the Grand Rounds and Pelham bike path to the east.

Apparently Dominion (and others?) put in a application for Met Council TOD grant for 1.3 million for the public realm work around this development, to improve the park, trail and make the portion of new Berry extension along the park a raised plaza area so it could be used as part of park at times etc. and the Met Council didn't award the money. I know the Dominion's buildings are not as sexy as many TOD proposals but I consider not a great loss that Met Council passed over a grant for this area - given this development is sorely needed all-affordable housing near LRT and this new park could make a great public space, if it could be finished nicely. This park and trail extension connection (if it can get the funds) could serve as great connector of Mpls and St. Paul, south of 94 to Green Line, neighborhood to Grand Rounds etc.

Also, the plans for the Legends at Berry (the senior housing) and Milberry (family housing) have been put out to bid.

It looks like the new Myrtle that is going in south of the apartment buildings and north of the new park, will be extended east through the north part of the Sunrise Banks parking lot, with a curve/jog a bit to the south, to connect through to Curfew.

So apparently the developer Dominion was required to demo the portions of the property they sold to the City for the park land within one year of that agreement - so they are doing that demo now.

Neal Route, a senior development associate with Dominium, said construction of both housing developments and the park would begin in June and take roughly two years.

https://www.twincities.com/2018/05/01/n ... n-st-paul/

Melo's article mentions it as two parks, but its just one piece of land, the main rectangular park in the middle of the site and the curved old RR spur part that goes south and east of the main park land, that will be the trail land. There is also small triangle of land at sout, east end of the curved trail, in a sort of depressed area, south of and below Sunrise Banks parking lot. not sure it that might be wetland, or if it could be made into usable park land.

Friday afternoon demo began in northern part of site. Weis is general contractor

The two apartments that are planned to open for this site are named Miliberry Apartments and Legends of Berry. They are planned to open next year which seems like an aggressive schedule.

The eastern part of the site is now demo'd, and I'd expect the debris to be fully cleared by the end of today.

I saw that they had a cement pump truck pouring some footings or something this week. The long warehouse facade is still there – it would be really neat if they kept that!

Probably a crane pad.

As of a few days ago all that was left was one long structure down the middle of the property, so if it's not gone already I'd expect the site to be cleared by the end of the week. Quite a change in the look here.

St. Paul staff and design firm also met with local commercial building owners/developers like Sunrise Banks, Suntide that owns Court International and who is working to re-do empty warehouses along Eustis (Case) for office space and possibly retail/restaurant.

So if all this can be tied together well, and trail connections can be made, could really make this more like a good old-fashioned neighborhood with lots of businesses and offices, along with lots of residences, instead of just a bunch of big, pretty empty buildings, and lots of asphalt parking lots.

A new brewery has opened in the Case Building at 767 Eustis Street. Sounds pretty cool.

Hot Spots: New St. Paul brewery lets you test and rate unreleased beers, hard sodas
*UNLOCKED*

So the occupants of the Case Building nearby this Weyerhauser site are to date: Kimley Horn A/E firm, The Lab pilot brewery and tap room (which is an excellent place to hang out despite the view being a surface parking lot), and a seminary. And they still have space to fill.


As to the new park in the center of the former Weyerhauser site (south of the apartment bldgs. currently under construction): The city apparently doesn't have enough money to finish the curved trail portion along the former RR spur - my understanding the City's plans are currently just to do something simple, cheap for the main square and leave the trail part unfinished for now.

The park site is buried in construction equipment and piles of fill right now, and I haven't seen any more thought plans than a couple of concepts they had this winter, so looks like nothing happening on this til 2020. That's what it says on the City website timeline, but I think they are behind on that schedule. https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/park ... k-westgate

I'm going to try to organize some sort of friends of the park group to see if we can get some additional funds to better develop the main park area and possibly the trail - any ideas from anyone as to how to do this, please, chime in. There are a lot of people and orgs near this park, lots of both SFH and MFH residents, lots of offices/employers, families, senior housing, affordable housing, near transit, in both the CEZ and Towerside area etc.

City of St. Paul put out a preliminary plan for the square portion of park land the City bought back from Dominium, south of where apartments are going in. Pretty basic as not much funds for anything else. This part of park will constructed next year. The "Park 2" land that is curved former RR spur and small triangle of land at southeast end of spur is scheduled for any park development at this time. Since there is good RR gravel/ballast still along this curved alignment, hoping the city can just get it cleared off and let people willing to walk on gravel use the undeveloped trail.

Unfortunately, it looks like from the civil plans that the parks dept is using and the road construction happening now, the new Myrtle street going in east/west here will not be connected to Curfew to the east, but dead end into the eastern Dominium apartments (Milberry) underground garage.