urbanMSP

Woah, there. Alatus proposing a 25-30 story apartment tower next to the Saint Anthony Main ramp:
http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 127556.pdf

That definitely deserves a WOAH!!!!!!!

Yes, but will they keep the historic St. Anthony Commercial Club?


*EDIT-After a slow-poke mobile download- YES!

Per the other HPC document, they will be incorporating the historic portion of the building into the new development, possibly moving it:
http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 127555.pdf

Wow. See what happens when a developer is freed from the requirement of having to build a crap-ton of parking with their project?

make it so........what a prime location for a tower.

that #7 rendering, looks intriguing.

None of those towers looked very good to me. I would hope that they would get some better ideas than those for that sight. Especially when you have the Carlyle on the other end of the bridge that is a classic. Half of those 9 pics looked like they were straight out of the 60's horror story. If you are going to do modern then do it elegantly, like the LPM tower section, not the base.

#4 is the only one I really found very appealing out of any of those.

Does this mean that funeral home is finally going away? Because that I can really get behind.

They mention a "point tower " which is a very promising design goal to have some sort of iconic architectural feature at the top. I wouldn't get much into a stew about the towers shown . They're just ideas and concepts. I would expect Alatus will create a very good proposal before all is said and done. Is this the same block as the Rampton proposal a few years ago?

None of those towers looked very good to me. I would hope that they would get some better ideas than those for that sight. Especially when you have the Carlyle on the other end of the bridge that is a classic. Half of those 9 pics looked like they were straight out of the 60's horror story. If you are going to do modern then do it elegantly, like the LPM tower section, not the base.

Not everyone likes the Carlyle though... it's probably one of the worst iterations of a deco building I've seen around... if they had more appropriately applied exterior materials maybe. looks good at night though! Lol. my recent trip to Europe proved that even in historic cities they don't build fauxstoric buildings, mostly great modern architects for large projects, and 60s is definitely back in all around!

They can keep the 60's, 1 and 4 are the only ones that I have any liking of. Do not like the massing of most of them. That is what I worry about here is a large box with little in detail besides colored panels.
I'll take the Carlyle over the Churchill or Riverwest any day for design. I'm afraid we will have a Nic on the River box.

But what's the difference between fauxstoric 30s and fauxstoric 60s?

I was wondering to myself when we'd see something tall again on that side of the river, since Mill and Main 2 has taken the last prime riverfront spot. I hope we don't see 7 thru 9...absolutely awful.

Deco was a beautiful style, the 60's was a period of design time where they did not design, but made due. I know of many deco icons in the world, I really don't know of many 60's icons that we lavish praise on. Usually the opposite we don't care for them. Most of the really early 60's building were designs of the late 50's by the time they got built. I'll give Lever and Seagram's buildings in NYC as 60's Icons, but again they were designs that came from the late 50's.
MPLS was lucky we did not get any of the 60's towers here. We got the IDS in the 70's,which for the most part set a high bar from towers in this city, City Center excluded.

I think that they can build towers to the north of St. Anthony Main where that huge block of parking lot is. With the historical riverfront, you can't build anything in front of them, so you would still get a great view of the river.

I really don't know of many 60's icons that we lavish praise on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid

(construction started in 69, but design was earlier)

Is this the same block as the Rampton proposal a few years ago?

It is, though the Rampton was proposed for the west side (and the top) of the parking ramp. So there doesn't seem to be anything about this project that would prevent the Rampton from coming back to life.


As far as the parking lot goes, I agree that that would be a great site for (hopefully) at least a couple of towers. With the elevation change, even low floors would have a good view over the Aster Cafe to the river and downtown.

John Hancock also.

I like the positioning of everything in the 3rd option, with the building between the corners of the block and set back a bit behind this beautiful funeral home (I was wondering how they were going to deal with such a beautiful building on their site!) and a nice corner plaza that looks on paper at least to be a very pedestrian-friendly design. I also like towers that stray away from the typical design: a rectangle. More glass is fine with me design-wise, since many of the most attractive modern buildings today seem to have large glass components.

I didn't see any designs with the 35-story option though, even though it was noted at the beginning of the article that the design may be 25-35 floors, 250-300 units.

I really don't know of many 60's icons that we lavish praise on.

IDS construction started in 1968.

It is, though the Rampton was proposed for the west side (and the top) of the parking ramp.

Wasn't Rampton proposed for the north and east sides of the parking ramp, facing the General Mills parking lot?

Speaking of, that surface lot is an obvious development opportunity.