Bland low-density commercial - 5108 Edina Industrial

[mister.shoes]

I noticed that there is construction fencing up around the deserted office building on the NE corner of Edina Industrial Blvd and Metro Blvd just west of MN100. I had to do a little digging on the city of Edina website, but I did find the staff report from last October:
http://edinamn.gov/edinafiles/files/Cit ... 20Blvd.pdf

Nothing remarkable here. Which seems about right for this corner of Edina.

[David Greene]

Sandwich/Salon/Service/Food/Coffee? It's like an arcology!

[sdho]

Pretty vast improvement over everything else in that corridor (save for Burgundy Place or whatever, just east of the interchange).

[grant1simons2]

Throw 2 levels of office or residential and I'd be happy.

[mister.shoes]

Speaking of office, there was a similar proposal to tear down the office building at 5100 Edina Industrial and replace that with strip mall commercial just like 5108. Both of these proposals had their sketch plan reviews on the same day, but that office building has had some remodeling work done to it in recent years and I suspect it's going to stick around for a while.

[mister.shoes]

Pretty vast improvement over everything else in that corridor (save for Burgundy Place or whatever, just east of the interchange).

Can't say I disagree. Despite the "strip mall in a sea of parking" form this will take, it at least pretends to acknowledge the street.

[sdho]

Can't say I disagree. Despite the "strip mall in a sea of parking" form this will take, it at least pretends to acknowledge the street.

The only thing that seems like a significant waste to me is the large amount of space dedicated to the horseshoe drive-through. I'm glad people have found a way to provide drive-throughs without surrounding the building in frontage roads and parking lots on all four sides. But I'd much rather we not spend about ~6000 square feet of land just so people don't have to get out of their cars to eat.

Considering the immense amount of attention distracted driving has gotten lately, it's bizarre that we designate so much land, disturb neighbors, etc all to better allow people to drive with 0-1 hands on the wheel.

Throw 2 levels of office or residential and I'd be happy.

In downtown, sure, single-floor commercial is a huge waste. But this is not even Southdale area-proper... it's an industrial park. Sure, a mixed-use, multi-story building is great, but there are about 10,000 places in the metro I'd sooner see developer interest and investment go than this -- even within southern Edina, I'd rather it go toward the center of the Southdale District.

The great thing about a development like this -- if done well, it's not repellant to future intensification of land use. (While the strip mall across the street truly is.)

[grant1simons2]

Just because it's in a more industrial doesn't mean it can be the catalyst for further redevelopment of the area.

[mister.shoes]

The success/failure of the Pentagon Park redevelopment across 100 will be a pretty big indicator as to what can happen on the west side of the highway. If Pentagon Park turns out great and [relatively] dense, I can see the mess of warehouses and asphalt between 100 and the CP RR tracks getting redone—eventually. At this point in time, most of them are still being used for warehouse-style businesses. I work over there, and while my employer is 95% white-collar we still use some of our warehouse space for exactly that. There's a surprising amount of truck traffic up and down Bush Lake Road.

[blobs]

Bleh. I work near this sad area. The Normandale area from car almost looks deceivingly walkable, but it's really not, since it's built at automobile scale. Every dump strip mall nearby you have to get to by car. I see people walking on the strip mall lawns sometimes, and they look miserable. And 84th is a 6 lane freeway, a 494-clone. Not pleasant to walk near. The only redeeming quality is the lake. A giant freeway (84th street) was a big mistake to put next to a nice lake. Sorry no useful info here, just had to vent. Feel free to delete.

[sdho]

84th is stroady as hell, but the details with the big berm and ped bridge make access to the lake pretty decent from the north side.

[Mdcastle]

84th is a freeway? They must have built grade separated interchanges and raised the speed limit to 55 mph since I was there last.

In hindsight it might have been better to build ramps from Normandale to American have that instead of having 84th tp make the lake shore more pleasant.

I'd never go to a fast food or coffee shop without a drive-thru, and if you don't have them there's have to be more parking spaces while drivers run into get their food and then go back out their cars.

[blobs]

with turn lanes 84th has more lanes than 494. cars go 40+mph and it's uncomfortable to walk near at rush hour or really any time of day. no tree shade. and drivers stop in the crosswalk, are generally in a hurry and drive aggressively.

[sdho]

I'd never go to a fast food or coffee shop without a drive-thru, and if you don't have them there's have to be more parking spaces while drivers run into get their food and then go back out their cars.

OK, but look at the plan. The drive-thru takes up the space of 20-30 parking stalls. That'd have to be one hell of a popular drive-thru to make up for that amount of parking.

I'll also note that fast food seems to survive just fine across the street -- Subway and a pizza to-go place.

[mister.shoes]

The drive-through at this new development (old office building is gone now, btw) sure is enormous. I agree. There has to be a more efficient way to build one, if it's absolutely necessary.

To be fair, the BK and Eddington's both have drive-throughs ("fastest in town" claims BK) though Caribou of all places does just fine without one.

[sdho]

The drive-through at this new development (old office building is gone now, btw) sure is enormous. I agree. There has to be a more efficient way to build one, if it's absolutely necessary.

Well, there are at least two ways to do it more efficiently. One is the old school "building in a sea of parking" setup, where the drive-thru encircles the building. The other is to create an extra curb cut. For different reasons, both are kind of undesirable.

For bigger sites, you can get more creative, though. I think CVS at Nicollet & Franklin provides a nice example: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9622932 ... a=!3m1!1e3. Just an extra one-way lane next to the circulating drive for the lot.

There are myriad reasons why drive-thrus can be bad for communities, however:

1. Poor use of land/space
2. Unsightly to neighbors
3. Loud speaker noise that can be disturbing to neighbors (especially residential neighbors)
4. Lots of cars idling, creating localized air pollution
5. Lots of cars with headlights turned on, creating a spotlight light pollution (for drive-thrus open late)
6. Encouraging distracted driving via eating while operating a vehicle

If they're to be allowed at all, they need to be tightly regulated. Granted, #3 and #6 don't apply for prescription or bank drive-thrus.

[mattaudio]

^I'm eager to pressure Walgreens into redeveloping their run down heaping pile of a store at 44th and Chicago, but I'm worried they'll push for a suburban layout with a drive-through rather than any sort of mixed use.

[sdho]

^I'm eager to pressure Walgreens into redeveloping their run down heaping pile of a store at 44th and Chicago, but I'm worried they'll push for a suburban layout with a drive-through rather than any sort of mixed use.

I could see that. It's a big site today; there's probably plenty of space for a drive-thru. And we know from their recent pitch to build the Holy Angels Memorial Drive-Thru on 66th that they seem to heavily prioritize having that.

Then again, the new Walgreens on Broadway and N Lyndale is great, despite having a drive-thru: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.999113, ... 312!8i6656. The issues of noise/light/air pollution still exist, of course.

[mister.shoes]

The new Lyndale Walgreens doesn't have one. Which is surprising given the amount of room Borton used to take up.

My wife has a coworker who lives very near the Snelling Ave Walgreens in StP. They can actually hear the drive through conversations at their house. The sound of those speakers carries surprisingly far.

[blobs]

I used to be ok with drive thrus but seeing them at lyndale/66th...they are arse ugly. No longer a fan but I still use them (hypocrite!)

sdho makes a good point about them devaluing adjacent residential through air/light/sound pollution

/edit: those 1 way ones looks nice, though.