urbanMSP

On the bright side, according to this article, Hines broke ground on the Nicollet in June 2006!

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/s ... ily57.html

Hines Interests of Houston, with worldwide credentials and a very big wallet, has joined the team for The Nicollet on the Mall, bringing the 56-story, $220 million condo project one giant leap closer to reality and a projected June groundbreaking.

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/158462805.html

Mpls. apartment boom underway
Posted by: Eric Roper Updated: June 11, 2012

"...Chicago-based developer Magellan Development said construction will begin in late summer of this year and finish in the spring of 2014..."

1368 is on its way! Interesting how they mentioned the national trend towards urban living. I read that Detroit (along Woodward Ave) is booming with new housing and a Whole Foods is going up. Woodward Ave used to be a stretch of road ( in the inner city of Detroit) with mile after mile of boarded-up houses. 1368 LaSalle is going up in a much more stable neighborhood (and city) than anywhere in Detroit by a long shot. It will be very succesful.

Detroit had to gove 4.2 million in incentives, and is only getting a 20,000 square foot store. I hope it is sucessful for them. Target downtown Minneapolis required incentives, but has been successful. It's nice that the Whole foods development here didn't require any, and is a decent sized store.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2012 ... /205150325

On the bright side, according to this article, Hines broke ground on the Nicollet in June 2006!

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/s ... ily57.html

Hines Interests of Houston, with worldwide credentials and a very big wallet, has joined the team for The Nicollet on the Mall, bringing the 56-story, $220 million condo project one giant leap closer to reality and a projected June groundbreaking.

The Nicollet would have been an epic development for downtown and Nicollet Mall. Unfortunately , there were too many cooks in the kitchen at too many different times for this project to get off the ground. It was stalled several times and finally collapsed with the condo market crash. The circumstances and situation for 1368 are very different. I think it will move forward.

The good news is if the rental market crashes it only really effects the developers and banks who financed them. When the condo market collapsed it hurt thousands of homeowners directly. If rental vacanies shoot up, it likely just means lower rents for the people living in them. Some properties could foreclose as Steve Minn has been quoted on about in the media about similar large scale high rise projects. But if a property is foreclosed on, it just gets bought up cheap by a new buyer (i.e. Bigos/Galtier Plaza).

Another good thing is many of these projects aren't getting huge public subsidies. And even the projects that do get public financing, a lot of it is in the form of cleanup grants from DEED and the MetCouncil. Even the potential loss in TIF money isn't bad, as the building is still going to exist for decades to come. Galtier Plaza received $30 million in public money. But I''ll bet it generates over a million a year in property tax revenue. It sucks for the city and Port Authority having to right off the bad debt. But buildings like Galtier will be standing for another 50+ years, it's going to generate plenty of revenue in the long run.

Yes, the rental market really can't "crash" as Spectre said. The economics of building rental is less risky in some ways. Another thought is some of the new apartment buildings sure come across to me as "psuedo" urban condo buildings. The Loring Office Building and 1368 Lasalle in particular are awfully posh developments.They could easily convert to home ownership if market conditions were favorable. Who knows though?

Yes, the rental market really can't "crash" as Spectre said. The economics of building rental is less risky in some ways. Another thought is some of the new apartment buildings sure come across to me as "psuedo" urban condo buildings. The Loring Office Building and 1368 Lasalle in particular are awfully posh developments.They could easily convert to home ownership if market conditions were favorable. Who knows though?

I thought I heard somewhere that the Loring Office building was going to be Condos but given the market they kept them as Apartments. It sounded from the old thread that they were already planning on converting them back when they could. It would be a great place to own a condo! right on the park and next to a coffee shop! ...although I think they could get more money if the coffee shop was a Starbucks

I think they were doing some more minor work/testing on this site today...there were some fresh dug up spots and a piece of earth moving equipment.

There is something going on at that lot - this morning you can see a Braun Intertec truck and a backhoe on the far end of the lot. There is also a sign on the lot that one half of the lot should not be parked in on June 14th and the opposite end should not be parked in today.

You can also see some freshly dug areas near the back hoe that has been dug up and re-filled with dirt.

Sorry totally forgot to post about that, there was a sign saying something the along the lines of "west side of lot closed Thursday" and "east side of lot closed Friday" or vice versa.

Can't wait for this tower to start construction! They are building such a beauty on one of the biggest eyesore surface parking lots in Loring.

http://www2.impark.com/Pages/default.as ... is/st.paul

According to Google street view ImPark is the parking company (and if I recall those big yellow signs are still there) I checked online trying to see if I could get any more info but that lot is not listed on their website. Of course maybe they sold it to the developer or something, but If they were going to resurface the lot I would guess they would re-list the site. Even if they no longer own it I would guess they would hire Impark to manage it for the time being.

I think that's encouraging news they are not going with plan B, yet.

Also if they do build this project I think the "Red Jungle" Salon is going to look really really really sad. It would be awesome if they got together with the mini strip mall and developed a L shaped building 7-15 stories with bottom oversize floor going to them for renting! would be pretty cool and they could keep the SA on the corner!

That parcel of land was sold in 2006 as shown below for $5.5 million



Owner Name:
PARK TOWER AT LORING LLC

Taxpayer Name
& Address:
PARK TOWER AT LORING LLC
C/O MAGELLAN DEV GROUP LTD
225 N COLUMBUS #100
CHICAGO IL 60601

Sale Information

Sales prices are reported as listed on the Certificate of Real Estate Value and are not warranted to represent arms-length transactions.

Sale Date:
May, 2006

Sale Price:
$5,500,000

Transaction Type:
Warranty Deed

WOW! that was a long time ago! Guess Impark been using it for a long time! Thanks for the Info.

always glad to see my favorite parking lot in town is still horizontal

stay classy, 1368!

Omg? Utility relocation? Omg?

Omg i walked past that the other day with a friends and assumed the pile of cones was for the pride event. So does this mean "it is happening!?!" Is it time to celibrate yet?

I noticed the cones as well today... If I am not mistaken, the road was closed to through traffic...

This is promising. Now that Nicollet Residences has been made much less desirable with its more squat design and far less units with views, 1368 Lasalle will now gain eminence as one of the premier residential buildings downtown for people wanting urban living high in the sky!

Someone should have asked those two guys standing at the corner of the gas station.....bet they would have had some answers about the project.

I biked by there this mornign and Excel Energy crews were getting set up so they are surely doing some electrical work - there are lots of paint markings in the street.