urbanMSP

Unrelated: I was just over here today and was surprised to see how far back that new sound wall goes. It's not just along TH 100 and the ramp, but all the way along the north side of 50th to Interlachen. It looks absolutely awful. I sometimes dislike the 77th St sound wall in Richfield, but that is at least shorter and landscaped. This is a stark, painted, 20' wall with a sad sidewalk wedged between it and the road.

The Grandview Transportation Plan calls for short-term (<5 years) removal of the free-right off of southbound Hwy 100, so at least pedestrians won’t be subjected to speeding, merging cars for much longer.

The plan calls for lots of other changes to make the whole Grandview area much better for peds & cyclists (& motorists).

There will be such rage coming to the open house, if Parkwood Knolls Nextdoor is any gauge.

Grandview has been studied and battled for at least a decade.

The neighborhood & city came to a compromise such that there still isn’t a small area plan, even with a decade of study, but there is instead a ‘development framework’. The small area plan is coming later this year.

The Grandview Transportation Plan calls for short-term (<5 years) removal of the free-right off of southbound Hwy 100, so at least pedestrians won’t be subjected to speeding, merging cars for much longer.

The plan calls for lots of other changes to make the whole Grandview area much better for peds & cyclists (& motorists).

The wall does not make it better for pedestrians, even with removal of the free right. At best you'd have a small landscaped area and slightly slower cars next to the lifeless 20' plain wall. The design is just unacceptable to divide a surface street from a neighborhood -- especially in the redevelopment district like this. Walking from west to east, you have about 1600 feet of "nothing" between the wall, interchange, and a couple blocks worth of tall privacy fences on the east side.

Oh, I was talking more about what you termed the “sad sidewalk” and speeding, merging cars than I was about the wall.

Since the city does want to remove the free-right soon, then that whole area would need to be re-landscaped, anyway. Probably just conserving tax dollars.

Rendering of the proposed Grandview residential tower and art center.

Nolan Mains- http://nolanmains.com/

http://www.startribune.com/just-listed- ... 473401383/

Proposal for drive-through Einstein Bagels and Car-ibou (virtually across the street from Edina’s own Carbucks) at Vernon & Interlachen (5000 Vernon) from Edina Planning Commission meeting next week:

https://edina.novusagenda.com/AgendaPub ... tingID=267

This will be nice. A better sidewalk would be good to have here, I’d rather have some corner landscaping sacrificed for wider corner sidewalk standing space.

If this can relieve the Arcadia carbucks line backup it will be huge, but I expect people on Summit will howl about Caribou cut-throughs from this. Another concern is during heavy traffic hours getting in and out of the gas station is already difficult, adding this drive through might send some complainers over the edge.

The redevelopment will be nice, but I’d like to think we’re in a post-drive-thru world. And so much parking. As you say, that’s a ton of cars going in & out. Granted, much of it will be cars going east/south on Interlachen in the morning, commuting to Hwy 100, so they’ll be making right-hand turns, but still.

So the planning commission was not too happy about the very suburban layout, street reconfiguration, and feel of this. (Thanks heavens.)

So, what can be done with this small, triangular lot?

4 microrestaurants with a shared seating area? Pretty cool idea, although I doubt we have the density to support this. (And where will they park?! Of course, there’s a municipal garage across the street, but no one wants to cross Vernon there. Very unpleasant today, although the Grandview Transportation Plan calls for calming that area.)

http://guerrilladev.co/the-zipper

It seems like so much pavement for so little parking.

How much of Summit, on the west edge, is public?

Summit is public, but there is a retaining wall; it is not level. So the lot can’t be combined or anything.

So the planning commission was not too happy about the very suburban layout, street reconfiguration, and feel of this. (Thanks heavens.)

Can't blame them -- that is *terrible*. I guess I don't doubt there is demand for yet-more drive-thru coffee in this area, but does it really have to wrapped with parking lot on all sides? The downtown Richfield location is underwhelming too, but even then they managed to do a horse-shoe style drive-thru so the building can be pulled up to street on one side. They are building a similar style drive-thru over near Cedar Ave & 66th St now.

They presented final plans for the coffee/bagel shop, with some tweaks to the layout.

City staff recommended against it.

The planning commission voted against it.

It goes to city council next week.

The Caribou coffee received approval from city council yesterday

The Caribou coffee received approval from city council yesterday

Whyyyy.

Was it a unanimous vote?

Not unanimous: 4 for, 1 against.

While it is admittedly a difficult lot (size, shape, grade), it is also the signature lot in that it is prominent from all approaches.

A drive-thru is a terrible, terrible use for that space. Very disappointing.

Edina’s neighborhood nodes are tiny, and there’s little room for error.

I wonder how much the city’s aversion to on street parking outside of 44th/France and 50th/France, requiring on site parking, hurts with getting good projects.

Turn Vernon west of Interlachen to two lane, like 50th through 50th/France. Make outer lanes on street parking. Bring Caribou/Einstein up to Vernon’s sidewalk, eliminating the parking between the store and Vernon. Maybe giving enough room for another low traffic retailer on site.

Traffic could be made slow enough that people could parking and cross the street like is possible with the parking bays along 50th.

The city’s added parking on their side of France from 50th up 3 blocks, and is considering doing it all the way to 45th. (So I guess that fits into your theorem.) But at 44th, the 44th & France SAP calls for wide sidewalks and a central turn lane instead of parking.

The Grandview Transportation Plan calls for Vernon west of Interlachen to have separated bike lanes instead of parking. The city is trying to get unified, shared, central parking in all their nodes instead of on-street parking.