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Re: Stadium Village

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 3:19 pm
by TheUrbanGopher
I've run into a lot of non-students in this area (who are, ironically, close to retirement age) who would love to rent/buy a condo near the U of MN but can't due to the limited supply of non-student housing. The 19 stories of residential could easily be divided between students & non-students. That being said, this is a fairly small site to put a bunch of units on each floor. It'll be an interesting development for sure.

I still want to see same number of retail slots here. I'd be fine with a dumb parking podium if the street level makes sense. It would be a real shame if this reduced the number of shops along a presently bustling retail strip.

Re: Stadium Village

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 3:34 pm
by Anondson
Does make the Prospect Park vision seem quite achievable.

Re: Opus Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 4:12 pm
by acs
Just a little more info:
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -lund.html

The church will receive parking spaces in the new ramp in exchange for building on their surface lot

Re: Opus Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 4:18 pm
by MNdible
I don't see there's any way that you're going to retain all of that retail. Even if you locate the lobby off of Harvard (which should be completely doable), and retain all of that frontage along Washington and maintain the same square footage that's there now, there's just no way it gets subdivided into eight pieces. We've seen it in Dinkytown, etc., but nobody build's 15'x60' retail spaces anymore.

Regarding units for non-students, I could also see somebody making a killing renting furnished units by the month or semester to visiting faculty, etc.

It will be interesting to see what kind of a setback they give to the new apartment building next door, especially since it's likely to be the parking podium that butts up to it.

Re: Opus Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 4:33 pm
by go4guy
Couldnt they have all retail in it's current location, have the elevators and lobby on the Harvard side. Then have the ramp entrance on the southern most portion of the property on Harvard? The ramp would then go straight up to floor 2 and the parking ramp could be floors 2-6 leaving almost all of the first floor as retail and lobby space. Similar set up to the Mozaic project, but with 17 stories of residential on top.

Re: Opus Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 6:33 pm
by exiled_antipodean
If you go up to the top floors of Philips Wangensteen you can get a sense in some corridors of what the views will be like looking west and north to Minneapolis.

If this project works out I wouldn't be surprised to see more towers along Washington 5-10 years hence. The zoning allows it, and it's a desirable area but probably cheaper land costs than downtown. And from Washington you get good views. of downtown and the river. The western most developments in any Prospect Park station building would be in a similar position to sell good views of the city.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 26th, 2015, 9:47 pm
by woofner
A small correction: zoning doesn't allow a building this dense here any more than it does in any other part of the city. This building will need a lot of variances to go through. It will be helped by its proximity to LRT and that's about it, zoning-wise.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 7:08 am
by RailBaronYarr
Yeah these parcels are currently zoned C1 and C2, the latter of which has a FAR max of 1.7. They'll likely want to re-zone to C3A or something, but would still require variances for height and bulk.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 9:27 am
by twincitizen
Will we soon hear cries of "Save Stadium Village!" and "It's Stadium Village not Stadium Megatown!"?

I honestly doubt there will be all that much opposition to the form and density, but there will be some cries about losing spaces for small, independent businesses. Will the building be deemed historic by the HPC, as was done with 1319 4th St SE just one year ago? There's not really one bit of difference between this building and 1319 4th St...

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 9:52 am
by EOst
I honestly doubt there will be all that much opposition to the form and density, but there will be some cries about losing spaces for small, independent businesses.
Yep. Honestly, this gives me pause too, and I like big buildings.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 11:00 am
by nordeast homer
I wonder if the hospital would purchase units for use of families of people needing long-term care? I've got to believe it is something they would look at.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 2:05 pm
by jw138
Will we soon hear cries of "Save Stadium Village!" and "It's Stadium Village not Stadium Megatown!"?
It begins:

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

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 2:23 pm
by FISHMANPET
Give him a check with enough zeros and he'll be happy to sell out. The Big 10 business will survive and can easily come back. And honestly? As a graduate and now employee of the U, I don't think Big 10 is all that great. It's usually pretty dead, except on game days.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 2:26 pm
by Silophant
Still, though, unless I just blocked it out, there was never much hue and cry raised about any demos in Stadium Village, was there? Even the Oak St. Theatre, which was at least as historic as anything that's been threatened in Dinkytown.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 2:31 pm
by FISHMANPET
Well next door to this we lost an auto shop and an old house, and a single story retail building with a basement that had a chain. Sally's was a strip mall with a parking lot. I remember the Oak St Theatre but not much else about that block. Campus Pizza was there in some crummy looking building, but I was only inside that once. But yeah, I don't think there's the kind of attachment to specific buildings here like there was/is in Dinkytown.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 3:44 pm
by EOst
Yeah, Stadium Village doesn't have the same kind of historic constituency that Dinkytown does, and any historic context that this building might've once had has been obliterated already (again, unlike Dinkytown). What would an SV historic district look like, anyway? At least with Dinkytown you can identify a core couple of blocks; this one would be even more fragmented than the Harmon district in Loring Park.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 4:39 pm
by Silophant
SV historic district: Just the Sterb's building.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 9:29 pm
by MNdible
Preserved due to its association with a historically important political figure, Sue Jeffers.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 27th, 2015, 9:34 pm
by Didier
I wonder if people realized that a favorite campus establishment was owned by such a nutball.

Re: Stadium Village Tower

Posted: May 28th, 2015, 7:46 am
by IntrepidEmu
I've been a lurker here since this place was Minnescraper, and I usually have nothing to say, but since I've lived in this area as a student and currently work on East Bank I do want to give my 2 cents on this project.

I'm not against this development at all, but I am concerned about losing some unique storefronts that are not really possible to replicate with new construction. Obviously no one will miss FedEx or the empty space where Jamba Juice used to be, and Big 10 is not a particularly popular restaurant (as far as I can tell), but Village Wok, Abdul's, Bun Mi, and Espresso Expose are all very popular and I'm not sure how many of them will be able to come back like Sally's did down the street. I'm not overly familiar with the economics behind retail in new developments, but as far as I can tell it's atypical to have affordable, independent restaurants and stores in brand new, high-end buildings. I hope I don't sound too much like a NiMBY, but if I do then at least you know the potential arguments NiMBY's might bring up.

Would it be at all possible to build this without demolishing the Washington Ave storefronts? It might make more sense to have the front of the building be on Harvard anyway, since cars can't drive down Washington anymore (which also makes the parking podium seem like a strange choice to me).