urbanMSP

Looks like there will be a new 382' residential tower on 70th St. / France Ave S. - just south of the Galleria.
Notably there is a separate 8-story residential tower to the south of the building geared 100% as affordable housing.
https://edina.novusagenda.com/AgendaPub ... ingID=1623

Ah. They came back with an offer of 24 stories after the city told them they wanted higher, since this is on the acceptable side of France for density.


5 story of office above a grocery at the corner of France.

Looks like 282' for the tower - they did the thing where ground level is 100'-0". Still, it would be the new tallest building in Edina by almost 50'.

Edina is becoming our own little Bucktown.

A tiny office building near Fairview hospital and half a block north of Southdale is having a 3-story medical office building proposed on Barrie Rd.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... hdale.html

To become the future offices of a gastroenterology clinic. An actual sidewalk here would be quite an amazing thing, to be honest.

My wife worked on that old building and I saw residents from north of there regularly having to walk in the street to get to Southdale or transit.

For the 70th/France site, it looks like the separate affordable housing building has been eliminated. They're asking the city for $22 Million in TIF to close a financing gap on what is a pretty massive $250 million development across all project phases. I assume they will be including some affordable units in the tower building to meet Edina's requirement.

https://www.hometownsource.com/sun_curr ... 2c4f6.html

Edina is becoming our own little Bucktown.

Wait...Bucktown, Chicago? Or did you mean Buckhead, Atlanta?

A /little/ unfair since Edina approved the homeless teen shelter across from Southdale. Though I doubt it would have been approve at Grandview, 50th and France, or 44th and France.

Is this in the Edina SD or Richfield SD?

...

Edina is becoming our own little Bucktown.

Wait...Bucktown, Chicago? Or did you mean Buckhead, Atlanta?

Buckhead!

Is this in the Edina SD or Richfield SD?

Looks like this is Edina SD. [PDF]

The city staff report about the US Bank site redevelopment asking for $22M in TIF got a lot of people heated.

https://www.startribune.com/developers- ... 600152562/

Lifetime tower is back, happening on the parking lot.

32 stories maybe?

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... tower.html

Maybe I'm looking at the renderings wrong, but it seems like this tower would be built where the transit center currently is.

It going to fill the parking lot between the transit center and the Hennepin County Service Center entrance.

Here's a link to the sketch plan to be discussed at the Planning Commission on July 13th:

https://www.bettertogetheredina.org/ske ... ketch-plan

Interesting proposal, and cool to see an addition of a park at the mall. The transit center is proposed to be relocated to 66th & Drew.

Hmmm, not sure how I feel about the transit center being relocated. The distance between the existing transit center and the nearest mall entrance is approximately 500 feet, while the distance between the new transit center and the nearest mall entrance would be approximately 800 feet. Also would this make bus operations in the area easier or more difficult, and could this have an impact on the E Line besides a relocated southern terminus? Would be nice if the new transit center had an actual indoor shelter unlike the existing transit center that's just a few small shelters with little protection from the elements, but I don't know who calls the shots on that (city, property owner, Metro Transit, or all of them?).

If they're going to move the transit center to a location that might be more inconvenient for people, then at least make the design of the new transit center better than the current one. Maybe have an indoor walkway to the mall entrance like what they have at the General Mills HQ bus stop.

Disdvantage of the new transit location: further away from, and the entrance is on a different level than, the mall entrance to access the Hennepin County Service Center from the direction this site would send people. Decreased accessibility.

In fact I believe the placement of the current transit center was a factor in where the relocation of the service center would go.

An advantage is that it is far closer to the homeless teen shelter and the hospital across 66th.

Depending on the final destination of riders, being on the outside of the mall ring road makes accessing the mall worse. Sadly I see no chance Southdale Center cares to make bus rider access safer at the cost of making drivers driver safer. Being on the outside of the ring road does make getting to any destination that is not the mall itself a little better as it is one less hostile driver conveyance to pass over.

I hoped for medical offices where this transit center is proposed but I have a strong hunch that Macy’s still has deed restrictions with Simon that prevent anything from being built to obstruct line of site to their building, which is why single story Shake Shack is where it is and not something more substantial for a major intersection.

The E Line will already have a stop at the Hospital, so I do see the new Southdale Transit Center becoming more of a transfer point then a destination stop for the businesses north of 66th. It does look like in the diagram that the new transit center would come with pedestrian improvements to the area. The new stop looks to be 100 ft further from an entrance, but honestly I prefer that entrance and it is closer to the AMC which is the main reason I got to Southdale.

Criticism that the Lifetime tower proposed is an elite enclave and gets in the way of the hoped for gridding of the Southdale mega block.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... tower.html

Not wrong. But I can see how the plan of this got the idea the city really didn’t care about the hoped for through grid on Southdale.

And … elite enclave criticism? In Edina?

That reads as a classic “bunch of words” situation.

So was talking to a planner friend at Metro Transit. Metro Transit definitely has the leverage to have the current transit center integrated into the development instead of being moved.