Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

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twincitizen
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Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by twincitizen »

MSP Business Journal has a story up about federally-owned real estate. With remote work it was inevitable that the GSA would start looking at consolidating offices and selling off surplus buildings. That will probably be accelerated by the current administration, despite somewhat conflicting with their return-to-office mandate. Nationally, what will mostly happen is the federal government will end its leases at property it doesn't own, consolidating into owned buildings. Minnesota does not have a ton of federally owned property relative to other states, so there's nothing to get too excited about here as far as office conversions, etc. Here's the article for those with a subscription: https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... -cuts.html The article doesn't actually mention post office properties, but since I'm starting a new topic we might as well throw that in here.

One building that has caught my attention for years is the Paul Wellstone Federal Building, which I had the opportunity to tour recently. Despite occupying a full downtown block, there's not that much going on inside. It's mostly one story above ground with a small 2-story section along the 3rd Ave frontage, plus a full basement. The users are a passport facility occupying most of the main level, with a HUD office in the upper level (mostly vacant due to remote work). The passport office is a nice active use that brings people downtown during the day, but that office could really be located in pretty much any building with good public access and parking nearby. They may have some unique security/shipping & receiving needs, but I don't think it's anything too out of the ordinary that couldn't be nearly any place else.

I would really like to see this building sold to a developer in 5 years or so, following completion of Sherman's Harmonia / Washington Yards project across the street. The location is just too ideal for more housing, and with a full block to work with, I think they could keep enough of the existing facade to satisfy preservationists. I'd be fine just retaining the 2-story portion and facade along 3rd Avenue, and tearing down the rest of it. The Washington & 2nd St sides are nothing special, and 2nd Ave is just a parking lot, so I don't think my proposal is too anti-preservation. Getting a retail space at the Washington & 2nd Ave corner would be big. It's always going to be a challenge to make Washington Avenue a consistent compelling experience from Whole Foods down to 3rd Avenue due to all the non-existent frontages on the former ING / Washington Square buildings, but Sherman's project and this block would start closing that gap.

I threw the post office in the title too, so others can speculate on that one. Post Office re-use is arguably less speculative than the federal building, since it's been city policy for decades that they want the parking ramp gone. Idk if anyone has insider info, but fr why is the post office sorting/shipping operation still there? It doesn't even necessarily have to move that far away, it could be in an industrial area in North or Northeast.
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Re: Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by MNdible »

MNdible
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Re: Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by MNdible »

I feel like there was lots of speculation when the St. Paul post office moved to the Eagan facility that it could eventually handle all operations for the entire metro area. Maybe the extra work load of e-commerce changed that math, but it definitely doesn't make sense to be pushing all of those USPS semi-trailer trucks into downtown unnecessarily.
Silophant
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Re: Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by Silophant »

I lived kitty-corner across the 2nd/Washington intersection for a few years, and spent a bunch of time daydreaming about the feds expanding it, building up on the parking lot and the center of the building while retaining the 2nd, Washington, and 3rd facades. That assumed that they'd never give up the whole block, though, which no longer seems like a safe assumption.

For the Post Office, my take has been that there's value in having all those good, union, no-college-degree-required jobs in a central, transit-accessible area, but I don't know that it has to be the downtown riverfront necessarily. Just spitballing, but what if the Northeast Armory redeveloped into just the west half of their three block long megalot, and sold the east half to USPS to add to their fleet garage lot and build a combined, EV-ready facility?
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BigIdeasGuy
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Re: Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by BigIdeasGuy »

2 things worth noting that any redevelopment is going to have to overcome 1. the building is on the National Register of Historic Places and 2. it's named after Paul Wellstone and there will absolutely be loud complaints from some corners based on that as ridiculous as it sounds.

The first step with the Post Office site needs to be acquiring and tearing down ugly ass ramp at 1st and Hennepin
COLSLAW5
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Re: Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by COLSLAW5 »

i never realized the post office was expanded in the early 90s adding on the whole back half of the main building. the parking ramp got added in the 70s
Wezle
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Re: Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

Post by Wezle »

Would the NRHP designation prevent building on top of the structure? When I was in Toronto last year, there was a lot of highrise development being done on top of historic buildings there while keeping the facade and majority of the interior intact.

The post office expansion was done really faithfully to the original. I don't mind the larger building, but the ramp needs to go.
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