urbanMSP

Interesting blog post about air rights and the engineering (cost) issues, even if it does focus more on rail yards. Wish there were more numbers tying challenges to cost and therefore required dev to hit YY ROI (or break-even from subsidy).

Huh. I didn't post a link. I'm deeply saddened no one bothered to ask for it.

http://letsgola.wordpress.com/2014/05/0 ... -dreaming/

Well I already read it via twitter, so

I know Wilf is a real estate developer. And this kind of needed development is outside his experiences, but wasn't part of the reason speculated that he was looking in the northern suburbs was that he could develop land around the stadium that would happen there?

Here is a proposal to create acres of developable land adjacent to "his" stadium in downtown and right on two LRT lines. Must be going through his mind...

Is it possible this "crazy urbanist idea" could actually come to fruition?

http://finance-commerce.com/2014/05/u-o ... ver-i-35w/

The Downtown Council seems dead serious about accomplishing the goals in their 2025 Plan.
Aside from them not getting their exact wish on the football stadium location (they wanted the Linden Ave site or Farmers Market), they're pretty much batting 1.000 since that plan came out in late 2011. The stadium is happening, the downtown population is exploding, Nicollet Mall rehab is likely getting funded by the state. Their success rate is actually kind of scary.

This is Goal #8 in the plan.

This also came up at the Gil Penalosa event yesterday, which had CM Frey, the CEO of Greater MSP, the guy in charge of public realm enhancements for the Downtown Council, and a Park Board planner on a panel discussion. MNDOT head Charlie Zelle was in the audience as well.

Someone is going to have to take the lead on this for it to become reality. The Downtown Council, U of M, MNDOT, Hennepin County, and Minneapolis should be setting up a board or non-profit or something to keep this moving forward.

If the cost to do the lid really is only $60m as the article states (what level of development would that allow, does it include utilities/streets/mini park/etc, I don't know), this would seem to be an easy case finance-wise... You're right, twincitizen - this project needs a major push from a respectable body.

I do think the state would have to contribute to some up front costs in the form of bonding. As profitable for a developer as this scheme may be, no one has $60MM laying around just to build the "lid"/parking garage infrastructure to support the development. I'd imagine the freeway underneath would probably need some significant reworking as well (regrading, lighting, signage, etc.)

Phyllis Khan and Kari Dzdzdzdzic represent the area at the state level. The U of M has about a million higher priorities on their bonding wish list. I really think the City or County are going to have to lead on this. In the short term though, it would be great to see MNDOT or DEED offer some money to keep the studies going for a few years until the proposal is further along and developers start sniffing around. Bonding money in 2018 perhaps? Some sort of value capture from the Superbowl to help fund it?

Only $10 million more than the Nicollet Mall project....

I take it they're changing their minds about shifting car traffic that's going to and from the freeway away from Washington onto 3rd and 4th?

Caps are reparations to a cityscape.

Reminded again of this...

Any cap that leaves the loop ramps in place and doesn't restore some semblance of a proper 3rd/4th is pointless. I'm fully on board froggie's plan.

Hi all, first time posting but long time reader finally decided to get in on actually being able to post comments and topics....It is possible this has already been covered but are there any plans or pushes to possibly cover the interstate similar to Target Field Plaza over 394 to the east of the new Viking Stadium?? I remember seeing an article from the Strib that talked about doing similar things to help reconnect both sides of the city over the highway but how serious are those ideas and with the potenial lack of tailgating space around the stadium, would that provide an opportunity for those tailgating areas and more green space in general over the highway?

So I went around exploring in the architecture building at the U when I came across a very large model of the cap. It had a ton of different facts on it and I took some pictures of what I thought really stood out. So here they are:

WP_20150206_005 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_006 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_007 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_008 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_009 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_010 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_011 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_013 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_015 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_016 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_020 by grant.simons, on Flickr
WP_20150206_017 by grant.simons, on Flickr

Don't know how the photo turned out so badly

Thanks for posting those, Grant. I may have to go check that out after work on Monday.

They had it on display at the crystal court. Good to know it's still on display somewhere!

This had a lot of added info as well. I do encourage you guys to take a look. It's just on the bottom floor of Rapson Hall where the Metropolitan Design Center is located

Found a presentation too: http://www.designcenter.umn.edu/project ... ne2014.pdf

I remember looking at that display for almost an hour at the Crystal Court. I too am glad that it is still around. That gives me greater hope that this or something like it will become a reality by 2020.

It's been in there for a while now; I saw it every week when I was teaching in there last fall.

It really would be something though.

One major flaw I see with that proposal: no ramp to southbound 35W.