Target Field Station (the Hotel) & Target Field Station (the Station)

Downtown - North Loop - Mill District - Elliot Park - Loring Park
Wedgeguy
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby Wedgeguy » November 13th, 2014, 4:32 pm

Are you seriously claiming we should have a libertarian approach to local land use regulation?
I'm saying that if you want something that badly, you better have some capital to put forth. To make someone build something that will be a lose is just as silly. Like building a restaurant right next door to a meat packing plant and then make them spend a fortune on a patio because all restaurants must have a patio.

Not ever foot of sidewalk in any city is going to have doors and windows on it. I would have preferred that they had put retail under the Be Match building instead of a garage door. There they had a real chance at foot traffic and playing off the Fulton and 600 hopeful retail. The area you want just does not have that foot traffic. On 5th YES, but that is the grade change, on 6th not so much. There is basically nothing else on that side of the street due to the Trash burner and LRT track for close to 2 blocks, that will prevent anything else being build there for a very long time. Face it Matt, you will not change my mind any more than I will change yours. I've watch 35 years of developments that have gone well and those that went belly up due to bad choices that did not make economic sense. Empty buildings and store fronts built where there was not a market for them. Like all developments, it is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION that makes or breaks a development, not land use.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby FISHMANPET » November 13th, 2014, 4:39 pm

No. It just means it looks like a building you'd see in the suburbs. Like the purgatory creek office building in Eden Prairie or the Tri-Tech building. They're uninspired and cookie cutter. Repeats.
If every building we built was the IDS then we'd get tired of that too. I'm not saying this is the Taj Mahal or Empire State Building or anything like that, but "it's too suburban" is just non criticism. If it's just a style you don't personally like, then fine, whatever, come out and say that. We've got a hell of a lot of brick buildings, we should stop building those, it's just more of the same.

grant1simons2
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby grant1simons2 » November 13th, 2014, 4:47 pm

Woah now. Didn't say everything should be like IDS, just try to be different.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby FISHMANPET » November 13th, 2014, 4:55 pm

Didn't claim you did, but my point is that whether or not everything is the same doesn't really give any kind of meaningful criticism. Brooklyn brownstones are all the same, but those are still good. One could say that a spec built subdivision is all the same and probably bad. But it's not bad because they're all the same, it's bad because the houses are bad. This isn't exactly the same as everything around it, so it's not really a constructive criticism to say it's the same as something else.

If we built 100 IDS towers downtown I think it would be reasonable to say we've got too many stretched hexagon floor plate glass covered sky scrapers downtown, but I don't think it would be reasonable to say that the first 99 buildings of that form were beautiful but the 100th is not.

It may be that this is exactly like a bunch of stuff being built in the suburbs, but that's not useful critique. Again, if we were building IDS towers in the suburbs (and for this example didn't have one downtown) would it be the worst thing in the world to build one downtown? If there's something you don't like about suburban office buildings, and therefore something you don't like about this one, then speak to that.

I think it's important to remember that architecture can be incredibly subjective and just because you don't like a style doesn't mean it's bad (and just because you like a style doesn't make it good either) so I think it's important to be able to speak to specifics, either positive or negative, when offering a critique.

Wedgeguy
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby Wedgeguy » November 13th, 2014, 5:00 pm

Didn't claim you did, but my point is that whether or not everything is the same doesn't really give any kind of meaningful criticism. Brooklyn brownstones are all the same, but those are still good. One could say that a spec built subdivision is all the same and probably bad. But it's not bad because they're all the same, it's bad because the houses are bad. This isn't exactly the same as everything around it, so it's not really a constructive criticism to say it's the same as something else.

If we built 100 IDS towers downtown I think it would be reasonable to say we've got too many stretched hexagon floor plate glass covered sky scrapers downtown, but I don't think it would be reasonable to say that the first 99 buildings of that form were beautiful but the 100th is not.

It may be that this is exactly like a bunch of stuff being built in the suburbs, but that's not useful critique. Again, if we were building IDS towers in the suburbs (and for this example didn't have one downtown) would it be the worst thing in the world to build one downtown? If there's something you don't like about suburban office buildings, and therefore something you don't like about this one, then speak to that.

I think it's important to remember that architecture can be incredibly subjective and just because you don't like a style doesn't mean it's bad (and just because you like a style doesn't make it good either) so I think it's important to be able to speak to specifics, either positive or negative, when offering a critique.
Amen to that.

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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby nickmgray » November 13th, 2014, 7:34 pm

I don't get what everyone is complaining about. No building can be pedestrian friendly on all sides unless it is completely wrapped with retail. The US Bank Plaza, Capella Tower, Wells Fargo and even the infallible IDS all have blank, uninviting walls. Why should we hold this building in the middle of nowhere to a higher standard than these other buildings?

I know we all want to build the perfect neighborhood, but lets pick the right battles to fight.

jet777
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby jet777 » November 13th, 2014, 7:42 pm

100 IDS towers would definitely be unique. Would you arrange those in a 10 x 10 pattern?

EOst
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby EOst » November 13th, 2014, 8:03 pm

100 IDS towers would definitely be unique. Would you arrange those in a 10 x 10 pattern?
In a row. Think of the skyline!

Silophant
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby Silophant » November 13th, 2014, 8:09 pm

100 IDS towers would definitely be unique. Would you arrange those in a 10 x 10 pattern?
In a row. Think of the skyline!
That would be so slender from the proper angle!
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mister.shoes
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby mister.shoes » November 13th, 2014, 10:55 pm

No building can be pedestrian friendly on all sides unless it is completely wrapped with retail.
We can do better than a partially underground parking ramp, though, can't we? Even windows into ground floor offices would be preferable to nothing but shrubs and a waist-high wall between the sidewalk and rows upon rows of cars.
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mattaudio
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby mattaudio » November 13th, 2014, 10:56 pm

Location location location, but barring unique natural features, land use creates location. We need fewer, higher quality locations.

Silophant
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby Silophant » November 13th, 2014, 11:39 pm

No building can be pedestrian friendly on all sides unless it is completely wrapped with retail.
That's a pretty good argument for having buildings that don't take up entire blocks. Partial-block buildings only have to be pedestrian-friendly on one or two sides.

Obviously, though, that's not often feasible in the current climate.
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mattaudio
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby mattaudio » November 14th, 2014, 8:54 am

Amen. The full-block development scale has been the bane of good urban design.

Also, why should a building in the "middle of nowhere," an evolving T4-T5 neighborhood, be held to a higher standard than 70s-90s buildings in the T6 core? Because now we know better.

nickmgray
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby nickmgray » November 14th, 2014, 9:05 am

I think we've always know better.

All we're really talking about is the perception of what the building is offering. Does it change your walking experience if you walk up a street next to a wall tinted glass with people working on the other side or if that same wall is bare with cars on the other side?

No.

There's still nothing for you to engage with. We're confusing "pedestrian friendly" with "pretty facade." They are not the same thing. I agree that they can make the back side of the building look a lot better, but doing so does not make it "pedestrian friendly."

mattaudio
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby mattaudio » November 14th, 2014, 9:24 am

But there is a fundamental difference... that's the whole point of the Gehl Door Ratio and other standards. People walking in and out, for whatever reason, starts to activate a street. Doors where people in the neighborhood have a reason to walk in and out - maybe just an insurance office, or maybe a dentist, are even better. Of course not every slice of sidewalk frontage can be cafes and retail, but it doesn't have to be. We just have to change coarse grained for fine grained. At a fine grained level, things can naturally evolve and intensify over time. The current plan does not afford that opportunity for natural intensification. If this is street frontage in a T4/T5 transect, we should expect better. It may not result in a difference now, but it sets the stage for natural place intensification over time.

mattaudio
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby mattaudio » November 14th, 2014, 9:30 am

Maybe it would make sense to say, in certain transects, that a certain percentage of a block face should have "incremental flexibility" characteristics. Spaces that are designed to be subdivided into 20-100ft frontages, etc. We need some fundamental changes to turn our buildings outward rather than inward.

John
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby John » November 14th, 2014, 10:01 am

Maybe it would make sense to say, in certain transects, that a certain percentage of a block face should have "incremental flexibility" characteristics. Spaces that are designed to be subdivided into 20-100ft frontages, etc. We need some fundamental changes to turn our buildings outward rather than inward.
I'm no expert on this, but there is no doubt there needs to be some changes in our zoning to improve the pedestrian realm , especially in areas with high density with front door access to public transportation. We need to encourage more local small business. There is still too much emphasis on buildings accommodating the automobile. This is becoming outdated , especially in the urban core.

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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby MNdible » November 14th, 2014, 10:24 am

Encouraging small businesses is a change that needs to happen with consumer behavior, not the zoning code. There's only a limited amount of 'convenience' retail that would ever make sense in a location like this -- and maybe there's a market for it, and maybe there's not.

In any case, I'm all for pushing the developer to make provisions for retail at the corner of 5th and 6th. Heck, design the whole frontage along 6th so that it can be converted to retail space if there's demand for it.

The math is pretty simple in their proforma -- let's say they give up five parking spaces that are earning $10/day and turn it into a 1000 sf retail space. The parking spaces are earning $1500 a month. The retail just needs to earn that much, plus enough extra to cover the pro-rated cost of converting it, providing utilities, maintenance, etc.

mattaudio
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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby mattaudio » November 14th, 2014, 10:30 am

But parking is an odious land use. Also, our existing zoning code is openly hostile to small business.

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Re: United Properties Target Field Station Development

Postby MNdible » November 14th, 2014, 10:46 am

You say so, so it must be true.


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