Hopkins - General Topics

[Anondson]

Interesting info on the gossipy side. Blake School owns 8 contiguous properties , six with single family houses on them on a block in my neighborhood.

Last week they listed 4 of them. The 2 vacant lots and one house sold last week.

This week 2 remaining properties were listed and one already sold.

It seems like they’re taking the market high and selling these off at a fine time. I bet next week the last of these houses are sold.

I wonder the fate of the 2 vacant lots, and I doubt Hopkins has any appetite for higher density than single family for them despite being in walking distance to the future LRT station.

[Anondson]

Correction: as of today all six have been sold. Huh.

[Korh]

How big are the lots since while they are probably never gonna build anything other then single family homes outside of some specific areas. that doesn't mean they can't resize some lots to something smaller and squeeze in one or two more SFH. Hopkins isn't as bad as some other suburbs but I can still think of a few areas where the lawn+driveway cover maybe 2 to 3 times more surface area then the actual house.

[fehler]

The smell of self-dealing wafts whenever an institution unloads assets. Shine a light on these transactions, Blake School backers.

[Anondson]

How big are the lots since while they are probably never gonna build anything other then single family homes outside of some specific areas.

Pretty narrow. About 40-45 feet for the lots with homes, two are so rundown that a hired engineers said it wasnt feasible to repair. Supposedly the city refused demolition. The vacant lots are a tad wider. .16 acres instead of .14 acres for the built lots.

[Korh]

Well that's a shame there not as big as some other empty/vacant lots in the city, although that makes me wonder what is the minimum lot size in hopkins. I read somewhere in MN minimum sizes vary from 500 to 2,000 square feet but I don't know how reliable that number is.

[Korh]

Mainstreet was added to the national register of historic places.
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2022/04/ ... ic-places/

[Anondson]

Seems like Redfin is showing one of the vacant lots is listed as a $799,000 garage face sfh new construction.

Feels like a policy failure for a vacant lot in walking distance to the LRT station is blocked from being even a duplex.

https://www.redfin.com/MN/Hopkins/15-Ha ... hare_sheet

[Anondson]

Looks like the city RFP for municipal parking lot 800 (corner of 10th Ave N and 1st St N) got one developer proposal.

The developer of the townhomes on Village Ln in Excelsior is proposing a “similar” development. The developer called out the fact the regional trail even links both.

They submitted photos of the Excelsior project. I once walked around it when I visited Excelsior once during a summer festival. It’s attractive. I would love to have something like that in Hopkins, close to downtown.

I would have like more affordable, but ownership options are equally needed.

[Anondson]

At the city council meeting Tuesday July 21 an agenda item is for Alatus Increasing the unit count from 112 to 116 of building A and decreasing the parking count from 124 to 77 stalls.

Building A is the below market rate building. City zoning says that a mixed use site must have 1–1.5 stalls per unit. This will be quite below for a suburb.

Alatus says they will market to car free households and give Metro cards to all residents of Building A.

Building A is one of the two that will start construction first, getting done well before SWLRT is completed.

This is promising and I hope the city supports it!

[Anondson]

Something like the 3rd proposal for the theater site.

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

[Anondson]

Looks like all businesses in Trilogy’s Phase B site have vacated. Doors boarded over.

Some doors have new addresses posted. O’Reilly moved to Shady Oak, the Asian Food Market moved to Cedar Lake Rd and Louisiana. I didn’t see one for Blake Grocery and Deli, they seem to have closed.

[Anondson]

Lots of action this past week by the Blake Road Station area.

The Trilogy phase B site completed demolition. Phase A is almost done with the second story.

The vacant Arby’s site was cleared after being unoccupied for many years.

Phase A of the 325 Blake site has been fenced off, also fencing off the sidewalk. Clearance of the mound of gravel and dirt has begun.

The Cedar Lake Trail paving from Blake to the east has started up, and it is rather easy to access walking the trail tunnel under Blake. I haven’t walked far down the new paved trail to see if the trail bridge over the creek is done.

[Anondson]

Just checked the Hennepin County records and the taxpayer of the Arby’s site, 140 Blake, has the exact same address as the taxpayer of the entire Trilogy development.

520 W Erie Ste 100, Chicago Il 60654

There must have been some quiet purchase of the Arby’s site.

I bet we’ll see a proposal that includes the station surface lot as structured parking for the riders and residents. Much like was done for The Moline?

[DanPatchToget]

Lots of action this past week by the Blake Road Station area.

The Trilogy phase B site completed demolition. Phase A is almost done with the second story.

The vacant Arby’s site was cleared after being unoccupied for many years.

Phase A of the 325 Blake site has been fenced off, also fencing off the sidewalk. Clearance of the mound of gravel and dirt has begun.

The Cedar Lake Trail paving from Blake to the east has started up, and it is rather easy to access walking the trail tunnel under Blake. I haven’t walked far down the new paved trail to see if the trail bridge over the creek is done.

The trail bridge over the creek is completed. I've seen people bike and walk between Blake to as far east as Belt Line on what will eventually be the reopened South Cedar Lake Trail.

[Korh]

wonder if there gonna put fencing up since they did do that on the section between the depot and 11ave since so many people where ignoring the barricades

Also don't know if it was already mentioned by small update/press release on the old theater site
https://www.hopkinsmn.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=258
Looks like the building might be demolished before the end of the year.

[Anondson]

The trail bridge over the creek is completed. I've seen people bike and walk between Blake to as far east as Belt Line on what will eventually be the reopened South Cedar Lake Trail.

I just biked it this morning to check. Here are my notes as of today:

It is no longer as flat and straight as a rails-to-trails bike trail. There is a surprising amount of meandering side to side and up and down.

The pavement had not been installed between Wooddale and the Louisiana Ave Station underpass. At the Louisiana Ave end, the trail ramp linking the Cedar Lake Trail to Louisiana Ave’s sidewalks is fenced off by construction fencing around the Sam’s Club-to-Loeffler retrofit

The ramp from Cedar Lake Trail down to the Edgebrook Park pond is only blocked by barrels and stands that look to be easily gone around.

The Blake Road end has a single barrel causally stood in the middle of a 12’ trail, like not even trying.

I was surprised at the amount of chain link fencing between the trail and the rail. Even the segments that look to only have a purpose of being a linear stormwater retention pond. I would be glad to see weed trends pop up grow back there fast to replace all the trees cut out for construction.

[Korh]

Yeah I rode it yesterday as well and the only thing I can add is that the trail feels lower then it used to be, iirc it used to be level or even a bit higher then the TCWR tracks but now not so much. Do wished they picked something besides the chain-link fence, if they keep it it'll kind of feel like your still biking through a construction area even after its finished which is a bit annoying since that's what we've been doing with almost every major trail in the area for the past 3-4 years.

[Anondson]

I observed the trail being lower in parts, especially nearing 325 Blake. This may have been done to make the underpass involve a shorter incline when passing below the road above.

Which of course means there is a decline from Blake above down to the trail.

It’s line the trail elevation cuts the difference between going under the road, and going up to the road.

[Anondson]

The owner of Knollwood Towers, a 316 unit apartment complex at Blake and Lake built in 1968, is proposing to replace two parking structures for a 7 story 140 unit apartment building.

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

I always wished the old parking structure would be replaced but I never imagined it would happen so soon.