Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfield

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ECtransplant
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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby ECtransplant » May 1st, 2014, 5:41 pm


I would have to disagree about this being a success. The design is not a failure but as a retail hub it is a failure. The retail portion on Excelsior is either empty or filled with daycare/learning center businesses and a CVS. Trader Joes is in an awful location with little or no parking and during peak times the intersection is clogged. The housing options are fine but as far as retail goes this is not a success. There is nothing there that is not on every other corner. It is really too close to uptown.
I could not disagree more. I live in uptown and often take the bus to TJs because there are certain items I prefer to get from them despite having Lunds, Rainbow, and Kowalski's within walking distance. The only negative is the stroadiness of Excelsior itself. We'd be lucky if Minneapolis had more buildings willing to prioritize the pedestrian realm over parking

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby Archiapolis » May 2nd, 2014, 7:31 am

I would have to disagree about this being a success. The design is not a failure but as a retail hub it is a failure. The retail portion on Excelsior is either empty or filled with daycare/learning center businesses and a CVS. Trader Joes is in an awful location with little or no parking and during peak times the intersection is clogged. The housing options are fine but as far as retail goes this is not a success. There is nothing there that is not on every other corner. It is really too close to uptown.
Sorry, the definining measure of a good retail mixed/use development is that the businesses themselves be unique?

I agree that unique retail/commercial is good but surely the developers can't control the market and aren't going to leave their rentable space vacant waiting for unique retail just for the sake of it. There are restaurants in this development that are NOT chains which goes against your argument as well. Unless Trader Joe's was involved since day one of the development there are going to be architectural difficulties. The "back of house" functions of a grocery store require a LOT of space but the use still wants to have a very public entry - two competing ideas that are hard to retrofit. Last point, again, this development isn't a non-profit and the developers want to lease their space. It is up to the tenant to decide if it works or not and, like others, I'm less concerned about car impacts than pedestrian impacts.
Last edited by Archiapolis on May 2nd, 2014, 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby mattaudio » May 2nd, 2014, 7:36 am

I'll take a CVS and Trader Joes in a winning example of New Urbanism than a CVS and Trader Joes behind big parking lots on stroads.

I realize most of us have distaste for chains, but New Urbanism isn't going to change the economics of chains overnight.
Granted, we might have a tipping point with land use and auto orientation that removes the overwhelming structural support of chains in our culture: http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014 ... 2OfIFcsCvs

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby mattaudio » May 7th, 2014, 9:16 am

Since this thread seems to encompass the entire Hub area at 66th/Nicollet:

The Hub Rainbow will be sold to the new Supervalu consortium, but maintaining the Rainbow brand presumably due to the 60th/Nicollet Cub Foods being a half mile north. Can this area support two big box grocery stores? Any chance this could help along a redevelopment of the Hub site?

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby twincitizen » May 7th, 2014, 9:25 am

That's a great question. Hub Rainbow really is the only grocery shopping option for the high cluster of seniors living in the area, as well as the cluster of lower-income apartments to the north of The Hub.

SuperTarget to the east is certainly sucking some of the grocery business in that direction. There's a Lakewinds Natural Foods Co-op going in at the Lyndale Gardens site at 6420 Lyndale. I still don't think that will peel off enough business to make a Hub grocery store obsolete. Also, a charter school is moving into the former Bally's behind Rainbow. Depending on the length of their lease, I don't see that building coming down anytime soon. The fact that the stupid Popeye's building fronting 66th is a separate parcel/ownership doesn't help things either.

Obviously full-scale demolition and rebuilding of The Hub area would be an urbanist's dream, but there are a lot of things keeping it from happening in the near future.

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby mattaudio » May 7th, 2014, 9:30 am

Agreed, my guess is that the 66th St Rainbow gets more traffic than the 60th St Cub. But the Cub may attract more Minneapolis residents (there is a psychological barrier of crossing 62 with many folks).

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby LakeCharles » May 7th, 2014, 12:22 pm

Agreed, my guess is that the 66th St Rainbow gets more traffic than the 60th St Cub. But the Cub may attract more Minneapolis residents (there is a psychological barrier of crossing 62 with many folks).
I can attest to that psychological barrier. Also I figure I might as well have my money going back to Minneapolis (through taxes and such).

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby MNdible » May 7th, 2014, 12:27 pm

Well, and why would somebody drive right by the Cub in order to go six blocks further south to the Rainbow?

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby mattaudio » May 7th, 2014, 12:59 pm

Also I figure I might as well have my money going back to Minneapolis (through taxes and such).
The joy of the "Minnesota Miracle" is that, except for the Vikings Stadium tax that was actually authorized by the legislature, our sales and income taxes are set, collected, and spent by the State (often contrary the best interests of Minneapolis). An excellent summary of this from StrongTowns: http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014 ... ion-5.html

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby twincitizen » December 29th, 2014, 10:30 am

Walgreens' developer backs out of deal to buy Holy Angels land, citing "difficulties in getting government approvals": http://current.mnsun.com/2014/12/breaki ... lawn-deal/

They never actually submitted any applications to the city, so it seems they saw the writing on the wall. Perhaps Walgreens has something in the works with The Hub shopping center or has found a nearby property to redevelop. I have no idea.

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby mattaudio » December 29th, 2014, 10:39 am

If only the HUB would get razed and rebuilt with a traditional development pattern / new urbanist style. It's actually a significant amount of acreage - over four square blocks - though it's squandered away by a skewed layout and a wasted parking lot and frontage along 65th.

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby sdho » December 29th, 2014, 11:11 am

In the name of incrementalism, I think it would be great if Walgreens rebuilt at the NW corner of 66th and Nicollet -- the actual corner, next to the sidewalks. They're smart people; I'm sure they could find a way to do a drive-thru even with sidewalk frontage. That corner of the parking lot is largely unused, and the former Walgreens store could potentially be demolished for replacement parking.

It would also be a much more visible location, and much better serve the transit users here (this is Richfield's #1 transfer point).

Unfortunately, incremental to what is the question. Unlike the Old Cedar corridor, Lyndale/66th area, 494/77th corridor, E 66th corridor, and Penn Ave corridor, there's no real plan in place for what the city would like to see here.

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby mattaudio » December 29th, 2014, 11:24 am

Walgreens could develop incrementally. Though the skewed orientation of the HUB complex makes incrementalism difficult beyond that... basically half of the HUB building would need to be torn down (ideally the half east of Marshalls) in order to facilitate a human-scale redo.

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby sdho » December 29th, 2014, 11:29 am

Walgreens could develop incrementally. Though the skewed orientation of the HUB complex makes incrementalism difficult beyond that... basically half of the HUB building would need to be torn down (ideally the half east of Marshalls) in order to facilitate a human-scale redo.
Wouldn't be that hard to reconfigure the Hub lot as part of an incremental thing. Although the buildings are oriented diagonally, the parking lot was originally on cardinal directions. People hate the diagonal; I think it would be well-received if they restriped it (and moved some islands around) to cardinal directions.

Here's how it looked in '62 (note that 65th St also goes straight through in that earlier version):

Image

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Re: Holy Angels Lawn Strip Mall (Nicollet & 66th) - Richfiel

Postby twincitizen » December 29th, 2014, 12:45 pm

In retrospect, vacating the old 65th Street (to the north) and Pillsbury (to the west) look like terrible decisions. It was done as part of a big expansion from what you see in the above image, to what you see today. Actually, the approved plans were even greater - they were going to enclose and add on to the front part of the mall, into the current nightmare parking lot. This is probably the major reason for the expanded (and largely unused) parking lot in the rear.

One thing I cannot figure is how the current parking arrangement was sold as an improvement to the straight, long rows in the photo above. It's a total nightmare today.

I agree with mattaudio - tearing down everything east of Marshalls would be a good start, and would clear out plenty of land for a multi-story mixed-use building at the corner.

As for restoring 65th Street to its natural alignment, it looks like the northern expansion is actually part of Marshalls, and they are the anchor tenant of the entire shopping center (sadly). They kind of rule the roost, from what I've heard. I've even heard something as insidious as them having a covenant in their lease that maintains sightlines from the 66th & Nicollet intersection, thereby preventing a building (of any height) from going up at the corner. Even if that's not true (perhaps the rumor pertained to Walgreens, not Marshalls), I think any redevelopment of The Hub is going to hinge on the participation of Marshalls, perhaps another anchor tenant, and Walgreens (unless Walgreens bails earlier).

As for Walgreens simply finding another nearby site, I'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to put them on the SE corner of the intersection, replacing the Best Buy Mobile and Old Country Buffet. There's also a Hot Comics store in there, which could easily relocate nearby, and a large vacant space between BB Mobile and Hot Comics. I'd imagine Walgreens could pick up that entire site for much cheaper than the Holy Angels land and redevelop (or reuse) as they please.


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