urbanMSP

Only 57% leased?? I thought it was quite a bit higher for some reason...

I don't necessarily agree that Phase II couldn't include another restaurant. In fact, they have the unique opportunity to have a restaurant opening up to or overlooking the Greenway, which nobody else in the area has done....to my knowledge. Not only would that be a pretty neat view but I think it'd be wildly popular amongst cycling enthusiasts!

In order to "overlook" the Greenway, it would have to be on an upper floor. I think you're forgetting about a certain bus lane into Uptown Transit Center

In order to "overlook" the Greenway, it would have to be on an upper floor. I think you're forgetting about a certain bus lane into Uptown Transit Center

I'm thinking more like the Bennett Lumber East site, which seems to have a promenade UNDER that road that connects directly to the Greenway. It could be done...

After defending this project from afar I finally over there Friday night. Color me underwhelmed. The "park" is tiny and basically a patio/passageway. Yes it's great to have new modern office space in uptown but the building is a design disappointment. Then you look across the greenway and the Flux apartment building is wonderful, urbane development. Did BKV design both of these? Their work is appearing all over town. I guess I'm perplexed why they are getting all the new mixed use business. Maybe they're cheaper than other local firms?

Flux is awesome and I have high hopes for the new residential proposed down to lyndale. It all just works with the greenway frontage. The renovated Buzza building is welcomed to. Unfortunately mosaic is a swing and miss aesthetically. It works fine for its users but is nothing to look at.

http://www.swjournal.com/index.php?&sto ... ategory=63

This article says 63% leased.

(*edit 63 not 66.)

anyone know how tall 150,000 sq ft might be on that footprint? I know there's no way of knowing, but an estimate of some kind?

anyone know how tall 150,000 sq ft might be on that footprint? I know there's no way of knowing, but an estimate of some kind?

Playing around with the Google maps measuring tool, I'm guestimating about a 31,200 sqft footprint for the parking lot, so 5 stories? Assuming the entire parking lot was used.

5 stories? :/ a little disappointing, but i guess they will be much taller than the parking ramp "stories", so it could still be around the same height as phase 1, who knows?

Ackerberg is looking to bring more offices to the block: Sixty-three percent of MoZaic’s commercial space is leased, and when the project hits 80 percent, the firm will start marketing the second phase of the project. The second phase would replace the surface parking lot on the east side of MoZaic with an additional 150,000 square feet of retail, office or restaurant space.

That'd be one helluva restaurant!

5 stories? :/ a little disappointing, but i guess they will be much taller than the parking ramp "stories", so it could still be around the same height as phase 1, who knows?

Guys, that doesnt' make sense. Isn't the current building only comprised of MAYBE 80K SF? The Phase II is not only supposed to be identical in scale as Phase I, but is/was supposed to be entirely office. Knowing that Phase I is 4/10 office floors, having 9/10 of the floors office could easily put it to 150K SF, as long as the floor plates were SLIGHTLY smaller, and the 1st floor would be the restaurant/retail (instead of the entire 150K tower -- which is obviously not part of the plan, despite my poke at it).

I'd book it as 10 floors. We're not dealing with a sprawling lot here.

Yeah, the footprint, looks more like about 15k-20k if you keep the plaza, busway, and alley. That would stack up to 8-10 stories.

ok. much more reassuring, and pretty much what I would expect.

Did we have some concerns about what the Greenway Coalition might have to say about that kind of height, or do they get grandfathered in from earlier submitted plans? Or could the office space be such a valuable asset to the city/neighborhood that they might turn a deaf ear to the cylcers?

Did we have some concerns about what the Greenway Coalition might have to say about that kind of height, or do they get grandfathered in from earlier submitted plans? Or could the office space be such a valuable asset to the city/neighborhood that they might turn a deaf ear to the cylcers?

Call me Ishmail but I thought the Phase II portion of this project ALREADY has approvals.....they are just waiting for sales on Phase I to meet a quota before pre-selling Phase II (I THOUGHT to pre-sell you'd have to know what you are building and how much.....IOW an approved project).

Just to end the speculation, there are not current entitlements for Phase II because in 2010 when the project received updated approvals, Phase II (which was labeled as Phase III due to the parking ramp being Phase I, the top office piece as Phase II) was not determined and it did not make sense to renew an 8-story 150-unit apartment building on the east side of the site.

The current Phase II will need to get re-entitled but typically previous entitlements would be referenced by city staff because it will likely require an amendment to the Planned Unit Development.

Our company has gone on the record of saying that it we are considering a 100,000 to 150,000 office building that could have a TBD ground floor use (whether restaurant, medical, office, etc).

The company is in the preliminary phase of planning the future building and the current building has had strong leasing, so hopefully something will happen sooner rather than later.

As for financing, we have always tried to be transparent in our discussions on how the parking ramp was financed. I'm sure if one were to dig through the City Council meeting minutes from fall 2010, one could find official documentation. The short version is that these were a Federal Recovery Zone Bonds that provided investors in the bonds with tax benefits in order to get them to invest their money in eligible projects. Privately owned public parking facilities were an eligible use and these bonds had to be funded by the end of 2010. The feds had allocations made to the State of Minnesota which in turn allocated them to various government units. Towards the end of 2010, some of those government units returned the money due to not being able to close on the bonds by the end of the year, so that is how the Mall of America hotel and the Mozaic parking ramp portion were funded. The project pays slightly higher-than-market interest and receives no tax benefits and will make full repayment to the bond holder. US Bank is the trustee. Is this a subsidy, the answer is yes, as the project would not have happened without financing for the parking infrastructure. But is it a give-away to the project, I would argue no, as it is a loan with market-rate interest.

The ramp provides the infrastructure required to building the office and restaurant space, along with providing a large portion of the parking requirements for Phase II. In addition, some of the stalls are technically fulfilling parking requirements that were grandfathered to adjacent properties. The office market also requires a certain number of parking stalls and I understand and respect the position of some on this website that they don't like land use dedicated to parking, but the community did identify that they want to see reduced surface parking lots, the concentration of public parking into fewer facilities, more daytime jobs, and increased density. This requires a delicate balance and will require a long time to transition to a market that hopefully can increase its transit/bike/walk share, but in the interim, there is a market demand for convenient public parking for visitors and employees. I'm not sure of the answer and we can debate how to accomplish this, but I just want you to understand that my personal position is that things are not black and white when it comes to trying to move the community towards a more vibrant, mixed-use, walkable community.

totally aside, why does v-i-b-r-a-n-t get converted to v*****t?

totally aside, why does v-i-b-r-a-n-t get converted to v*****t?

Its overuse irritates the millenial prima donnas of urban design and planning !

how about "animated sidewalks" or "energetic" or "not sleepy" or 'not St. Paul"

sigh....or that tiresome "craft beer"