urbanMSP

Amazon to lease ‘delivery station’ space in Eagan
http://finance-commerce.com/2016/06/ama ... z4CL2lJ5gt
*UNLOCKED*

That used to be a UPS office/warehouse. Used to deliver pizza there when I worked at Savoys

The plans for the new hotel adjacent to Twin Cities Premium Outlets have been canceled, and the developer wants to sell the land back to the city. The reasons given are high construction and labor costs, along with increased competition:

http://www.twincities.com/2016/06/29/ho ... -in-eagan/

Does anyone know what they're doing on Cliff Road next to Walmart, just off 35W? A bunch of land has been flattened over the last several weeks.

Nothing too exciting. Green Horizons, a lawn service / landscaping / snow removal company is building an office/warehouse/outdoor storage facility.
http://sunthisweek.com/2015/09/24/city- ... ds-parcel/

Bell International Laboratories is building a new 120K SF facility in Eagan, relocating from two smaller sites in Minneapolis:

http://www.startribune.com/contract-man ... 388713601/

Looks like one of their current facilities is near the 46th St. Blue Line station, but I'm not sure where the other is.

Ah yeah their site near 46th/Hiawatha is on the MLS for $1.5mm IIRC.

They are not building. They are taking over an unoccupied building.

Fair enough; the article used the term "break ground," which I interpreted to mean they were building something new.

Was on the redline today. Rode it all the way from the mall of America to the end. They may be building density in this area, but the area mediately surrounding the station seems to be nothing but parking ramps, and surface lots. From my observations, they may be increasing the density, but they sure don't seem to be increasing the walkability.


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Was on the redline today. Rode it all the way from the mall of America to the end. They may be building density in this area, but the area mediately surrounding the station seems to be nothing but parking ramps, and surface lots. From my observations, they may be increasing the density, but they sure don't seem to be increasing the walkability.

Yeah I think it was a real fail to orient the "transit-oriented" outlet mall so far from the station, with parking lots closer.

Yeah I think it was a real fail to orient the "transit-oriented" outlet mall so far from the station, with parking lots closer.

It's almost like someone told them they were building a mall in a suburb.

Yeah I think it was a real fail to orient the "transit-oriented" outlet mall so far from the station, with parking lots closer.

I think you two are talking about different things. The Red Line terminates at AVTS rather than Cedar Grove (i.e. the station by the outlet mall). But yes, the area around AVTS, while it's doable, certainly isn't great for walking.

As for the distance from the station to the mall, it's about 800-900 feet to the nearest entrances depending on how you measure it. It's not ideal, but they were limited in what could be built where due to the 77/13 interchange.

Yeah my comment was regarding Cedar Grove, not AVTS.

They simply did not *have* to have a block of parking between the station and the shopping mall. They could easily have chosen a different configuration of stores, or even rotate the whole thing to face Cedar rather than Sibley Hwy/13. I assume the main drive (see what I did there?) to orient it as they did was because the site is more visible from Sibley Hwy. Prioritizing visibility at 60 mph over access from transit in a *transit-oriented development* is something worthy of real criticism.

With the site being roughly rectangular, they would have had to have gone with a substantially different configuration for it to face Cedar, which is the short side of the rectangle. Maybe that still would have worked, I don't know. But then that would have created a huge ocean of parking on the NE side. Plus, with the townhomes that have been built by the station, not to mention the active senior housing going up right across the street from it, there will soon be a lot of people living right next to the station who can make use of it.

Architects are smart people. I think we're downplaying their skills to assume they're not capable of an even slightly rotated orientation.

This isn't even a "stock" thing like a McDonald's that gets dropped standard into many sites. It was clearly custom-designed for this site. They just made certain choices that really don't seem transit-oriented. The building also has no active street faces on any of the public streets it fronts. (Unless you call the loading dock on Nicols Rd "active".)

It will continue to better, and that's a comfort. And some other parts of the area are pretty nice, like Flats at Cedar Grove apartment building. But the anchor of the development is a big disappointment for me.

Of course, there was a time when the City of Apple Valley envisioned Galaxie as their primary transit corridor, which would have likely included the Red Line. After all that's the corridor where they at least attempt to build walkable urbanism.

Dunkin' Donuts-Baskin Robbins store possibly coming to Eagan.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... could.html

"Burnsville's apartment freeze unfrozen"
http://sunthisweek.com/2017/01/12/burns ... -unfrozen/

Just visited the initial community presentation on this, and it's supposed to start construction in May if approved. It'll be nice to see the biggest gaping, ugly hole in Heart of the City development filled (I may be very biased since I own a townhome in HOC...) but I wish there was something more than another mixed-use piece of the luxury apartment bubble going in. HOC also has a lot of vacant retail and office space already, and after seeing all the similar projects that failed to do so, I'm not confident that they'll be able to attract something useful and long-lived to the ground-floor retail space. It's still better than the current vacant lot.

We don't have a Heart of the City thread?
On tonight's Burnsville Planning Commission agenda:
https://burnsville.novusagenda.com/agen ... tingID=572

"Staff recommends that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the Planned Unit Development Amendment for a four story mixed use apartment complex with 172 units, 8,000 of retail and underground and surface parking located at 50 Travelers Trail East subject to the following conditions"

Seems ridiculous to put the commercial suites on the interior Cub Foods parking lot access, but leave blank walls facing Travelers Trail and Nicollet Ave.