urbanMSP

Construction began on this yesterday. Excited for phase 2- I think this is a much more well-designed building. Now for the A Mill to get going...

Will Phase II have retail?

Are there any images of this development?

Full docs from CPC:
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 105667.pdf

No retail.

Construction began on this yesterday. Excited for phase 2- I think this is a much more well-designed building. Now for the A Mill to get going...

Why do you say it's so much better than Phase I? I don't see too much of a difference personally.

I love how Minneapolis has taken such a serious stance on protecting the little available history along the riverfront here and turned it into something livable as well as beautiful! They started with the Mill District Lofts and such, and this compliments that area nicely on the other side of the river. Anybody walking down the Stone Arch Bridge will see the city as it was 100+ years ago, and without seeing decay or blight.

Why do you say it's so much better than Phase I? I don't see too much of a difference personally.

The end of the building closest to the A Mill looks like it's going to do a very nice job of emulating early 20th century warehouse/ industrial architecture. If it looks as good as the render, it should help this development visually transition into the old mill complex nicely.

I hope they get better masons on phase 2 than they did on the first phase. Some of the brickwork is comically bad -- is this because Doran refuses to use union masons?

Are you insinuating that only unionized masons are capable of fine craftsmanship?

No doubt there are very talented non-union masons, but typically union masonry gives you a more consistent level of quality because of their training and apprenticeship programs.

I hope they get better masons on phase 2 than they did on the first phase. Some of the brickwork is comically bad -- is this because Doran refuses to use union masons?

I haven't taken a hard look at the masonry on Phase I, but I had never seen anything bad... what did you see that looked bad? (just curious so I can look... I'm a masonry nerd...)

The dispute was about a non-union drywall subcontractor:

http://www.mndaily.com/2012/11/29/doran-clashes-union

A pretty small part of the overall project.

The brickwork is in many cases badly in and out of plane, especially at some of the corner conditions. It may be accentuated by the way the lighting washes the walls.

Perusing the F&C Flickr, came across this. http://www.flickr.com/photos/financeand ... 518690644/

This statue randomly disappeared from Calhoun Commons in front of Chipotle on Excelsior mid-June. Odd.

I went to take a look at this one in person today, I hadn't seen it since it was halfway done. Does anyone else think this thing already looks really dated? I would put Murals ahead of this one in terms of having an interesting design. Actually I think a lot of the infill we have had over the last year or two is pretty sub par.

The biggest issue I have with Mill and Main is it has no first level base or podium with retail activity. I find that odd for such a prime riverfront site in such an active area. As far as some of these apartment projects being sub par, my major concern is will these stick built projects (with their lower quality building materials) stand the test of time for durability?? I have much less concern in this regard for Soo Line, Marq4, Nic on Fifth, LPM, and the Alatus project. Those developments are higher quality and should age well.

As long as the buildings don't straight up fall over I'll be happy. I don't expect them to be luxury for more than 5 or 10 years (basically, once they start replacing finishes, granite counters will be replaced by laminate, stainless steel appliances will be replaced by white, etc) at which point there will be a whole pile of more affordable housing in prime locations, and the concrete buildings can stay luxury.

I live in a 45 year old building that I'm fairly sure is stick built, it was built as "luxury" but it is definitely not that anymore.

The biggest problem with the lack of retail is that there is a lack of a true foot traffic. While the summer months you get decent foot traffic over the Stone Arch Bridge, in the winter it is cut by 80%, IMO. IT is a few blocks from University and even further from Hennepin and Central basically goes overhead so there is little traffic that will come down from there. Both Riverplace and St. Anthony Main have retail space that is underutilized that would need to be filled to get enough critical mass to get customers in to shop. Main it not a real retail street by any shot. It does well for restaurants and bars that have riverfront views. But riverfront views don't sell dresses or men's suits.

Mill and Main is too isolated from a retailers want list of good foot traffic, other stores for critical mass, How soon before you do get the customer levels, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. You can build it, but how long will it take for them to come if ever. I think they did a nice job with the walk ups facing Main.

Someone said that this project does not look new enough, well it is in a historic district so I do believe they tried to make them look a bit older than they really are. I like most of the materials used, minus the cement board.

Well considering that the U of M is so interested in keeping its students on/near campus and not commuting to school, you'd think that the area will see a slow surge of foot traffic over the next 5-10 years.

They are putting up a tower crane for phase 2...I was kind of surprised, because they didn't use one for the first phase.

I was surprised to see a crane on this site already.