urbanMSP

Has anyone ever imagined if we bought out all of the industrial building in the are north of North Loop. The buildings inside the borders of Washington, Plymouth, Broadway and Marshall? The Hall island area.

There would be some exceptions, like a few of the buildings off West River Rd. But some of them look like they just came out of the industrial block of Bloomington. There are a few scrap yards and even a CUL-DE-SAC. Queue the alarms

The reason the whole south end of this area looks the way it does is because all of the buildings previously located here were removed to make way for the now-cancelled I-335. The project was completely dead by the mid seventies, so most of this stuff is from the late 70's through early 90's, eras known for their terrific urban design. The building at the corner of Plymouth and 3rd is pretty much the only thing that survived somehow.

A lot of the older industrial stuff further north on Washington is really cool.

Actually a lot of them are up for lease or sale. One of them, scrapyard is run by 10 guys. Looked it up. And hall island is just a field. No park. Just garbage and brown

I've had a fantasy that a new regional park could be cobbled together to make the first regional park in the inner ring suburbs out of open space along the Minnehaha Creek in Hopkins, St. Louis Park and a tiny piece of Edina. All strung through the future LRT corridor near two stations with the greatest potential for TOD development of light industrial land.

Call it the Meadowbrook Marshes Regional Park (or the impossible park, ). It would take coordination from various government agencies to make it happen. The Minneapolis Park District, Three Rivers Park District, Minnehaha Watershed District, Hennepin County, City of Hopkins, City of Edina, and City of St. Louis Park at the least and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some. In the end, it wouldn't need to be a single park, if it were to end up as an archipelago of adjacent but directly connected parks and trails, that would be just perfect.

My hope is that the Minneapolis Park District willingly parts with the Meadowbrook Golf Course intact and not sell it in pieces for development (with this past year of flood damage shutting it down for nearly the entire year, plus public courses being a drain finances, maybe it is nearer to happening!), the Minnehaha Watershed District and Three Rivers Park District team up with the cities of Hopkins, Edina, and St. Louis Park to cobble patches of open space around the golf course and stitch them all together into this cohesive preserve. Three Rivers would have primary park operations, new boardwalks and trails would be constructed to run around the Meadowbrook Lake as have been done and are proposed along the creek north of Excelsior.

Hennepin County has proposed bike accommodations along W. 44th from Lake Harriet to Brookside Ave through Minneapolis to Edina. I would love to see it connected across the existing park trail into the boardwalk ring around the lake, then run to the future bike boulevard in Interlachan Park. I haven't included any redesign ideas for the "golf course" because I see the lake being allowed to reclaim the drained area, easily doubling in size to the west, I'm not sure what the new lake shore would be.

Notes about the fantasy regional park map.
All blue dotted lines are from the Cities of Hopkins and St. Louis Park's bike plan documents for proposed bike lanes.
The red dotted lines came from the Blake Corridor open house maps showing proposed off street bike and trail proposals. Hopkins' bike plan suggests cycle tracks for the Blake Road redesign.
The yellow lines are existing off street trails or being completed right now.
The watershed district owns the Cold Storage and intends to build a future pond along the creek after the facility is demolished, the green boundary includes the space for this future pond.

Fantasy Meadowbrook Regional Park by xeoth, on Flickr

Has anyone else ever thought that the Wells Fargo Center would look great in downtown St. Paul?

I've had a fantasy that a new regional park could be cobbled together to make the first regional park in the inner ring suburbs out of open space along the Minnehaha Creek in Hopkins, St. Louis Park and a tiny piece of Edina.

This is very much like what I've written about before, though in not nearly as much detail. I agree this would be fantastic! I think parts of the golf course along Excelsior Blvd. could be redeveloped to complement redevelopment of the Rainbow/Powells/Musicland/ApplianceSmart land. It would insulate the park from traffic noise and speeding cars. If Excelsior Blvd. were narrowed a park running up to the road would work better but that's not going to happen.

The proposed bike boulevard on Goodrich St. through Interlachen Park is odd. It doesn't connect to anything. I'd have thought something nearer the old streetcar alignment would work better as it would link directly to the old TCRT ROW behind Blake school that's been a bike path for 40 years or more. Such a route would connected to Interlachen Park (the actual park) though the good folks at Interlachen Country Club might object.

Has anyone else ever thought that the Wells Fargo Center would look great in downtown St. Paul?

that building would look great in any city. it's a classic, elegant skyscraper. some of the best view corridors of it are from st paul.

The old street car alignment was built on in Interlachan Park and Rolling Green. Homes are there now. The city routed this Goodrich proposal as a near equivalent.

Btw, regarding the Appliancemart land, Japs Olson bought it recently to turn it into a parking lot for employees. Seriously. The city staff of SLP is not happy. Patches of development across the medical offices and hospital might fly, but both Meadowbrook and the city want to focus redevelopment of the Oxford industrial area. As long as these spots wouldn't limit Oxford from building out...

You should turn that into a streets.mn post for sure! What you've written here is practically enough already. It maybe just needs a paragraph more about challenges or costs or whatever to flesh it out. If you are interested (and I hope you are), you should email Nick about getting author credentials for streets.mn

The old street car alignment was built on. Homes are there now. The city routed this Goodrich proposal as a near equivalent.

I was thinking Spruce Road. But there used to be a little grassy boulevard between Interlachen Park (the neighborhood) and Spruce Road which is just the right width for a bike path. Maybe that's gone now, I haven't been over there in 20 years.

Btw, regarding the Appliancemart land, Japs Olson bought it recently to turn it into a parking lot for employees. Seriously. The city staff of SLP is not happy. Patches of development across the medical offices and hospital might fly, but both Meadowbrook and the city want to focus redevelopment of the Oxford industrial area. As long as these spots wouldn't limit Oxford from building out...

Didn't know about Japs. I agree that the Oxford area is a much higher development priority, especially given SWLRT.

You should turn that into a streets.mn post for sure! What you've written here is practically enough already. It maybe just needs a paragraph more about challenges or costs or whatever to flesh it out.

Let me maybe polish up the narrative, gather some related maps and imagery, maybe sketch some wishful thinking paths that make connections through the area...

Couldn't find a thread specifically for unbuilt proposals, so I'm throwing this in here. While looking at old photos of Great Northern Depot I stumbled across this very unique proposal for the depot area, including Nicollet Island.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1770096

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1770095

Really liking the putting of the island back into Boom Island.

To clarify: the above photos are from 1978.

Though I too would love to see Boom Island restored.

Glad most of that did not come to past. Still want a tower where the post office ramps is now.

Is that spot zoned for a tower? Seems too close to the river

It wouldn't be much closer than the Carlyle, or La Rive or the Pinnacle on the east bank.

To the best of my knowledge, because it is fronting Hennepin, it is outside of any district that prohibits height. But things may have change since I was last aware that there were no restrictions.

What if we put a street car or brt down 50th

What if we put a street car or brt down 50th

????

Fantasy! Serving from France to Nicollet