The Link at Prospect Park - 2929 University Ave SE

[schmitzm03]

http://bizjournals.com/twincities/blog/ ... rsity.html

Plans for a 258 apartment, 120 room hotel, and 33,000 square foot commercial space (in 6-stories and 15-stories sections) at the Planning Commission COW:
http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 144716.pdf

This looks promising!

[xandrex]

Looks like they want to get a grocery store in there with attached liquor store. Wonder who would be the best fit.

[MNdible]

There are an awful lot of moving pieces here. Good luck to them -- hope they can pull this off.

[seanrichardryan]

Jezuz- "258 apartments 9440 beds".

[MNdible]

I saw that typo as well.

It's actually just 440 beds -- much less impressive.

[mplsjaromir]

Darn, I thought my wife and I and our 34 kids had finally found a place to rest our heads.

[mplser]

wow that's an impressive proposal! I wonder if anytime fitness will stay? It's the best one in the twin cities

[BigIdeasGuy]

Wow that's quite the proposal. The one piece that surprised me was that they had ground floor apartments facing 29th St. I would have thought either retail or a restaurant would have been the better decision there.

[RailBaronYarr]

Quite a few 3 and 4 BR units. Have any recent major apartment developments (even condos?) had 4 BR units?

It's a bummer that the existing buildings with quite a few nice businesses (fitness, daycare, coffee, and then some) will be replaced by a single restaurant and large grocery, even if I do agree a big grocery anchoring a walkable neighborhood where there are basically none today is a big win. hopefully some other small spaces can be carved out in short order.

[Silophant]

Depends on whether these are supposed to be student apartments or not. I don't think any of the major buildings in downtown or uptown had more than a couple 3BRs, but WaHu, Metro Park East, The Marshall, etc. all have them.

[Didier]

Prospect Park has been pretty aggressive about luring new development, but not student-centric housing. For some reason the descriptions of this one kind of sound student-centric, so it'll be interesting to learn more.

[Silophant]

Heh. Not one, but two dedicated "bean bag toss" areas. I love a game of bags as much as anyone, but that really does make it sound like it'll be targeted at students.

[RailBaronYarr]

I noticed the bean bag toss areas as well after I made the comment. Still, tough to say.. You don't really see dog runs and walk-up units in recent student housing, but it does seem more geared that way. I should also clarify, I didn't mean carve out more commercial space within this development, but rather some other new space in the area oriented toward smaller commercial users. I'd imagine the daycare serves a lot of professors/staff who live in PP and work at the U (or downtown). As a new parent, I can say it'd really suck to have to find a new one.

[Didier]

An old printing facility just down the road recently converted into a charter school with retail space. It's an awful building to be sure, but it looks like Papa Johns took one retail spot and at least two more remain. There's also a vacant spot at that ENL place on University.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, with this being proposed and also the hotel proposal nearby. With the light rail and the transit way nearby it's a pretty good location for commuting to the U or downtown.

[FISHMANPET]

Man, and when I worked down there a few years ago I thought that print facility was a prime candidate for a new apartment building.

Interesting that Papa Johns would move from their high traffic location on Washington to there.

[min-chi-cbus]

Maybe they think/realize that most of their "traffic" comes from print ads or the internet or word of mouth, and that they can locate anywhere they want and still be effective? I've heard of companies that do that to minimize real estate costs/rent.

[MNdible]

If a high percentage of their business is delivery, then their location doesn't matter very much (within reason).

[Didier]

Man, and when I worked down there a few years ago I thought that print facility was a prime candidate for a new apartment building.

Agreed. I was certain the building would be coming down when I saw the construction begin, but instead they made it even worse.

[billhelm]

I occasionally worked for that PJ's store over a decade ago. FWIW it always had low carryout traffic relative to deliveries, no dine in, and the rent probably went up too much (it was a bigger than average store with a lot of storage space).

[twincitizen]

Man, and when I worked down there a few years ago I thought that print facility was a prime candidate for a new apartment building.

Agreed. I was certain the building would be coming down when I saw the construction begin, but instead they made it even worse.

Are you referring to the metal/mesh screen on the roof? I'm fairly certain that is primarily to screen new mechanical equipment on the roof, just designed in such a way that it has some design / flair to it