Bloomington - General Topics

[Mdcastle]

Whatever people's take on Nicollet I agree that we're getting wildly inconsistant results with recent projects in the area. Things built right like the Cedar Avenue trailhead, or River bottoms trail or the France ave boardwalk, contrasted with things like making pedestrians walk on the road to the Lyndale trailhead. Sometimes on the same project like the Portland cycletracks that end and dump bicylists on the street without connecting to the MUP north of 77th and we kept a four lane death road configuation on 106th while building a MUP and elimating two free right turns while keeping one and building a brand new one where there wasn't before. Or Xerxes and OSR where they built the northbound bicycle lane through the intersection but not southbound.

[wingedmolotov]

I agree- the higher profile projects get love, media coverage, and attention, but the smaller, piece meal reconstructions are kind of a black box, or at least are that way to many people.


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[wingedmolotov]

Here's a new proposal for a four-story, 180-unit apartment building on the site of Wixon Jewelers and five lots south of it. This is only 1/4 miles away from 98th Street Station/South Bloomington TC. All the units will be income-restricted to between 30% and 70% AMI. There is underground parking as well as a pretty large surface lot.



https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500176

[daveybabymsp]

Here's a new proposal for a four-story, 180-unit apartment building on the site of Wixon Jewelers and five lots south of it. This is only 1/4 miles away from 98th Street Station/South Bloomington TC. All the units will be income-restricted to between 30% and 70% AMI. There is underground parking as well as a pretty large surface lot.



https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500176

Is this parking based on estimated need from residents or is it from parking mandates?

[wingedmolotov]

Here's a new proposal for a four-story, 180-unit apartment building on the site of Wixon Jewelers and five lots south of it. This is only 1/4 miles away from 98th Street Station/South Bloomington TC. All the units will be income-restricted to between 30% and 70% AMI. There is underground parking as well as a pretty large surface lot.



https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500176

Is this parking based on estimated need from residents or is it from parking mandates?

According to the plans it is 8% below the mandated parking.

[Mdcastle]

Now I understand why they spent the last three months digging up my street to upgrade the sanitary sewer.

Although it seems kind of symbolic of the decline of East Bloomington that a high end watch shop is being replaced with low income housing, the actual reason is the Wixon Jewelers owners wanted to retire with no family to take over, and selling the business wasn't viable because of the "you have to earn the right to buy our stuff" attitude of their Swiss watch suppliers.

At one time they had planned to move to the old Gander Mountain building and turn it into a larger shop combined with a watch museum, but the 08 recession halted that plan.

[Mdcastle]

Option C has been selected as the preferred long term option for Bloomington Ferry Road. In the short term plans are to stripe off one of the lanes, buld bulbouts, remove the signals at 102nd and Verness, and build a HAWK at 102nd.

https://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/b ... 183146.pdf

[wingedmolotov]

Option C has been selected as the preferred long term option for Bloomington Ferry Road. In the short term plans are to stripe off one of the lanes, buld bulbouts, remove the signals at 102nd and Verness, and build a HAWK at 102nd.

https://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/b ... 183146.pdf

Am I misreading or the slides say RRFB, not HAWK? Is a roundabout at Pioneer Trail still in the design?


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[Mdcastle]

No, you're right I'm the one that read it wrong.

[Mdcastle]

It's also not really clear what their next step is. This started when the street was due for an overlay, and they cancelled it and instead started conversations about allowing the street to deterioate to "reconstruct", and then a complete redo at this point, but with the interem improvements shown, that sort of implies that they're going to put it back in line for an overlay, which I'd think would push complete reconstruction out for a decade or more

[wingedmolotov]

- Pre-app for a 25-unit townhome development near 86th and Old Cedar. An iteration of an earlier proposal from a few months ago, this time with more parcels included. https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500185
- KwikTrip is moving forward with a formal application for the I-35W/94th St site. If approved by the Planning Commission on 1/15, construction is expected to begin in spring 2027 and take four months. (I think this is a great project for the area.) https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500186
- The Wixon apartment project is also moving forward with an application - no details yet. https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500198

[Mdcastle]

Every couple of weeks my sister asks "when are we getting a Kwik Trip?" so I guess I can answer now.

Disappointing that they apparently weren't able to acquire the third parcel for a car wash since there's a line 10 deep at Holiday after every snow as the only non-club car wash anywhere close to the neighborhood.