urbanMSP

City website on planning in the Grandview District: http://edinamn.gov/index.php?section=pl ... ViewUpdate

"After over 50 years of service, the Edina Public Works building on Eden Avenue near Highway 100 was abandoned when the City moved into a new facility. Recognizing the future use of the 3.3-acre site would have a big impact on how the entire Grandview District develops in the future, the City Council authorized a visioning process to guide future development of the area."

Here's a report the city issued in December 2010: http://edinamn.gov/edinafiles/files/Adv ... Report.pdf

The latest info on the RFI responses: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -site.html

Four developers are interested. No one offered any specific proposals yet, because that would be premature, but Doran did offer this fancy rendering of twin mid-rise towers (and a fantasy choo-choo in the Dan Patch corridor!):

Seems like the city, and all of the RFPs, include a sort of split diamond interchange for Vernon and Eden. That seems reasonable to me.

There certainly is a lot of "free" MNDOT land to be reclaimed in the area by moving towards a tight, split diamond interchange. The best part is that it could easily be implemented in separate phases. The northeast corner especially would provide a huge developable parcel by eliminating the loop.

Another thing to note is that the community is strongly interested in some kind of public use (community center, etc.) as part of the development. There will probably be some opposition to any proposal that doesn't at least include some quasi-public open/green space.

How often does MNdot actually dispand excess ROW?

I almost missed the choo choo comment but saw the train, wondering if whoever made that rendering had some sway with legislators who could lift a *Not to be spoken rail line* ban.

I mean, Edina was one of the main opponents to even bringing this line up. If they're interested in a multimodal, fairly dense environment (even if it is next to a freeway), wouldn't/shouldn't they push for Dan Patch to be something (and, better than Northstar)?

Planning and engineering for a freeway cap in Pittsburgh was funded in this year's TIGER grants http://www.dot.gov/tiger/14awards

Edina went through the trouble of producing this excellent grant for the Grandview area, they should take the time to apply in the future so some of the public realm improvements can be realized.

Well, well, well. The city economic development manager is seeking council resolution to seek Hennepin county grant money to match for initial engineering cost for recovery of 8-acres of TH 100 ROW with reconfiguring the 50th-Eden Ave intersections and capping TH 100 with a express bus parking garage and pedestrian space with a lid.

http://tinyurl.com/lwqe29z

I guess the UofM, Metropolitan Design Center, and Cunningham Group already created preliminary lid designs! Anyone able to find those? Nice moves.

This would be probably the first time an existing interchange is reconfigured to make things harder for cars, not easier.

Thanks for the insight Monte, but I'm not sure we can rush to judge since no drawings or schematics have been presented yet. The current interchange is a bit confusing with undersized acceleration/deceleration ramps.

The intersections at 100/55 and 100/7 have each been formerly four leaf cloverleaf intersections and are now filled with stop lights. Now much harder for cars to move through. The Eden-50th intersections are designed as they are now because of a past usage pattern that no longer exists, when Vernon was a maxed-capacity four-lane road carrying commuters from southwest suburbs. It will be interesting what the designs propose.

The design I saw was a split diamond, which doesn't have the loop, I've not looked at traffic counts but I presume the east to north movement it heavy in the AM peak period, and with a split diamond they'll interfere with westbound traffic.

The lid finally got an article on it.

http://m.startribune.com/local/west/275534361.html

Love to see these designs talked about.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -site.html

"Edina picks Frauenshuh and Opus to redevelop site near Highway 100"

It would be such a great accomplishment if Edina can actually put a lid on this part of 100. My dad talked about how weird it was to see that highway go in when he was growing up there. I hope they don't stop here. I'd love to see all of that road covered where it can be, such an eyesore.

If Edina manages to put a lid over MN100 before MPLS gets one over 35W (north or south of the river, around Franklin, etc) or 94 (Portland-Chicago or Nicollet-LaSalle) I'll be pretty miffed.

I won't. There's absolutely no way development around the proposed Edina isn't a smashing success. That has to be one of the most desirable areas in the entire metro, much more so than 94 and Nicollet. Once freeway lids are shown to be successful in the region, they'll be actual momentum behind doing the same thing in less wealthy areas.

I actually think that freeway lids will develop first in the wealthy suburbs before being attempted in the core cities. The suburb's are only financially sustainable so long as there is new land to develop, and for an inner ring suburb like Edina this is pretty much the only way that will happen. Still, I'll be crossing my fingers for one over 94 in DT St. Paul.

Yeah, I would expect a successful cap in Edina to put momentum behind the proposed Washington Ave. 35W cap at least.

If a lid in Edina proves it can be done, then I'm all for it. Hopefully they have some forseight to use the freeway-effect mitigating lid to justify some sort of highway-running BRT station beneath it. Allow people to live close to fast transit that doesn't also mean living right next to an open freeway trench/elevated freeway/sound barriers (ex. 46th St).

But I do have a hard time saying this is vastly more desirable than some places in Minneapolis where lids have been proposed. Are rents in age-adjusted multi-family buildings in the area around 100 in Edina much different than 94/Nicollet, 4th/University over 35W, or other potential sites?

I don't see this as an either or thing - let's lid freeways all over if we can make it happen. But I would venture to guess that real estate value per acre is as high or higher on many of the spots in the core cities where freeway lids have been thrown around (Franklin, Washington, Portland-Chicago, LaSalle-1st, University-4th, Capitol-St. Paul).

Bunch of updates. The city has an "exploratory session" on December 4th for the future of the Public Works land. The Grandview page has the details.

http://edinamn.gov/index.php?section=pl ... ViewUpdate

I found the design school drawings they did for the 100 lid concepts. Interesting, and obviously just concepts. [link to .pdf]

http://edinamn.gov/edinafiles/files/Cit ... iew%20.pdf