urbanMSP

Was there some significant factor other than the stadium that changed in DTE in the last year or two? It's hard to believe the Wells Fargo concept was a coincidence.

I don't think it was a coincidence. Wells Fargo was planning a suburban campus until the stadium deal was finalized. Rybak says it was at that point he suggested they consider a deal with Ryan to use the Strib land and leverage the stadium ramp.

http://mspmag.com/Out-And-About/Article ... /RT-Rybak/

That's quite interesting to read about the stadium/WF deal from his perspective. A peek into how the political sausage gets made, if you will.

I'm curious what the article's specific reasoning is, though. While I'm not naive enough to think these new developments are occurring solely to "get in on the action" of being next to a stadium, it seems like a billion dollar investment to the eastern edge of DTE would take a lot of the risk out of developing the Star Tribune lot, for example.

I don't doubt that development would have occurred in this area if the Dome was imploded in 2016 and the Vikings moved across town, but I'm skeptical that it would start out at this scale.

And building on that, the Wells Fargo commitment must make other DTE developments even less risky, and so on. Without Wells Fargo, would the proposals for the parking ramp have been as big?

Wells Fargo got a parking ramp and a park for free. For the most part, those two things are what kept them from moving 5,000 employees to a sprawling suburban campus. Without the stadium there’d be no parking ramp with which to clinch the deal. And yeah, everything in that area looks more appealing to developers now. It’s no longer a black hole of uncertainty.

I can't confirm any alternative theories, but I can say that there's a lot of misconception floating around about what the different options were.

The Starchitect years were in the 80's and early 90's, We got buildings by Cesar Pelli, Murphy Jahn, SOM, IM Pei/Freedman, Kohn/Pederson/Fox, Frank Gehry, and Michael Graves came to town and added to Phillip Johnson's IDS Center.

The Starchitect years were in the 80's and early 90's, We got buildings by Cesar Pelli, Murphy Jahn, SOM, IM Pei/Freedman, Kohn/Pederson/Fox, Frank Gehry, and Michael Graves came to town and added to Phillip Johnson's IDS Center.

Which begs the question: Who are the new era "Starchitects" we'd like/dream/go after to design the iconic buildings for our beloved downtown MPLS canvas?

What do you think, new thread or Fantasies thread?

>Fantasies> Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid of course!

Yeah, there was nothing after the early 90s. Because the walker addition, the graves MIA addition, the Pelli library, and the Nouvel Guthrie don't count. We never get any good architects anymore. Not since the glory days of the 80s and early 90s.

Hate to contribute to the off topic banter, but I'd love to see us get a Richard Rogers building.

>Fantasies> Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid of course!

-1 on Calatrava for sure. I have always thought an art museum or something like that on the post office location would be awesome

I think we are kind of saturated on Museums now. Don't know what more we need and have the philanthropic dollars to support that is not now being taken care of.

I know we are getting off topic - but this is something I have been things about as well. There certainly is a similarity between the downtown post office building and the Tate Museum in London. Though the post office is being used still there will be a time when it may become obsolete. That space could be fantastic for an exhibition space. The Bell Museum is building just off of the St. Paul campus and that will be dedicated to natural history. When the St. Paul Union Depot was mothballed it did periodically house traveling exhibitions like the Titanic Show. Just a possibility for the Armory and the Post Office future reuse...

I think we are kind of saturated on Museums now. Don't know what more we need and have the philanthropic dollars to support that is not now being taken care of.

A friend told me that Horst Rechelbacher, the founder of the Aveda Corporation who just died , has a large collection of Bauhaus art. Maybe it will be donated to the Walker or MIA, but he might have enough to open up a museum on the scale of the Russian Art Museum.

I have always thought that the little Federal Office Building at the corner of 3rd Ave and Washington Ave. That could also be a great smaller space to house a collection. I think most people drive right by it and never really notice it.

So, random, but I was talking with a friend yesterday (the friend is twincitizen) and, in light of the recent from-left-field announcement of that Alatus project in St. Anthony Main, we were talking about the original sale of those parking ramps to Alatus back in the seemingly-ancient year 2007. Here's a request for council action from that time detailing some of the stuff they were thinking about:

http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 283327.pdf

The sale included:

• Centre Village
• Downtown East
• Seven Corners
• Loring
• Gateway
• St. Anthony Main

The sale came with the agreement that Alatus would redevelop or add a new project near "at least two" of the ramp properties. Downtown East doesn't really count, but then there's Seven Corners and Gateway (Latitude 45) that did happen. St. Anthony Main looks like a real project. There's some details in there about doing liner residential around the Loring ramp and then specifically mentions that they don't really see much potential at that time for the Gateway. Seeing as they did end up building something near the Gateway ramp, I wonder if they have anything cooking for the Loring ramp?

The parking lot across from Gateway Ramp counts as redeveloping the Gateway Ramp? Good project, but we still have a fugly ramp.

Has anyone ever imagined if we bought out all of the industrial building in the are north of North Loop. The buildings inside the borders of Washington, Plymouth, Broadway and Marshall? The Hall island area.

There would be some exceptions, like a few of the buildings off West River Rd. But some of them look like they just came out of the industrial block of Bloomington. There are a few scrap yards and even a CUL-DE-SAC. Queue the alarms

The cul-de-sac really isn't a cul-de-sac anymore and it serves as a driveway to Standard Heating (Although if you're looking for culs-de-sac look off Lyndale & Plymouth. There's a few over there.) Personally though, no. The thought of acquiring large swaths of industrial real estate has never crossed my mind. If you're inferring to buying it out and redeveloping it then definitely no. I'd rather see residential & commercial development occurring on all the empty surface lots currently within the borders of downtown. Also, pretty or not, those buildings account for a large number of jobs.