Root District - Farmers Market / Royalston Station

[thespeedmccool]

Well, since Bloomberg is now part of the ownership team, maybe they'll self fund. /s

[BigIdeasGuy]

So I spent a good chuck of the evening staring at Google Maps trying to find anything close to 8-12 acres needed in per Nick Halter. In the core of DT for a new site, I got absolutely nothing that doesn't require notable tear downs that wouldn't be politically viable. Even trying to piece something together on either side of Hawthorne using the Orpheum Lot is small.

You can put together a site attached to the convention center up to Nicollet that is about 8 acres but that means tear down everything between Grant to 15th and part of the convention center too, having 16k-ish arena attached to a convention center would have it's unique benefits though. The only option I was able to come up with was the Depot site and the 2 apartment buildings on the other side of 2nd.

I was able to get the current Target Center site to roughly 5.25 acres by giving up the 7th Street ROW between 9th & 1st along with 2nd Ave and incorporating the skyway currently behind the building. That still too small, building over 394 has it's own unique engineering challenges but doable and maybe you could add in that strange triangle block adjacent to the TC for a pretty cool entrance possibly as well.

To follow up on SeanRichardRyan point, yes the city would still own the Target Center if a new arena was built but there would be no plausible economic justification for the city to continue to maintain the building at that point. I would suggest that as part of the Wolves out of the lease the teaam would have to pay to tear down the TC and then the city could figure out what the best direction for the land is from there.

[mattaudio]

Why not HERC?

[COLSLAW5]

per axios this morning they said there is reports the team is developing plans for a private financed stadium to be opened by 2031 so i think that puts the HERC out of the question

[mattaudio]

What's interesting is closing and redeveloping HERC could be the shared interest that binds urban environmentalist progressives and rich sports team owners/Chamber of Commerce booster/Rybak-Frey types.

[twincitizen]

What's interesting is closing and redeveloping HERC could be the shared interest that binds urban environmentalist progressives and rich sports team owners/Chamber of Commerce booster/Rybak-Frey types.

Yes, I kind of agree that tying the area to the closure of HERC might be the only way to make the politics work. And HERC is a better site for an arena than the site they're looking at, by any possible measure.

[Silophant]

I don't know that not having direct Blue Line access is the end of the world - Huntington Bank Stadium, Allianz Field, and (kinda) Xcel Energy Center all just have Green Line connections and it's okay. Redeveloping the HERC site would be even better, though - it would share all the amenities of Target Field's location, and allow for a partnership similar to the one Alex described in his blog post, where the arena itself is privately funded, but the County (or state, or whoever) pays to demolish HERC and prep the site for it. Having the land continue to be owned by the county could also allow for some kind of infrastructure to be hidden under the plaza between the ballpark and arena, like, say, a geothermal district energy plant to replace the steam capacity currently provided by HERC.

[COLSLAW5]

anyone know anything about the border ave install? It looks like they have finalized the property acquisitions but I can't find anything on if and when they want to do the work

[Silophant]

Lol, I forgot that was even happening. Would have been pretty nice to have that connection in place before the ongoing Royalston/Holden intersection closure.

[MNdible]

I don't know that not having direct Blue Line access is the end of the world - Huntington Bank Stadium, Allianz Field, and (kinda) Xcel Energy Center all just have Green Line connections and it's okay.

Also, according to google, it's only an 8 minute, 0.3 mile walk from the TFS Blue Line stop to the likely arena site. For comparison, it's a 5 minute, 0.2 mile walk from the Green Line to the nearest Allianz gate.

[twincitizen]

anyone know anything about the border ave install? It looks like they have finalized the property acquisitions but I can't find anything on if and when they want to do the work

This was previously listed on the City's website as a 2022 project. Now the project page seems to have been taken down. A while back I emailed the staff person listed on the page asking for an update and didn't get a response, though it's possible they no longer worked for the City by the time I emailed. Here's a layout that was drawn back in 2019: https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... Layout.pdf

Looking at the Hennepin County property map, it appears the necessary ROW has been acquired and platted, so I assume this is still happening, but honestly who knows...it's probably worth pestering someone at the City just to make sure.

The next gradual grid change in this area should be to remove Royalston between its intersections with Border and 5th Ave N. That would seem doable without seriously impacting any current access to private property. It's so ridiculous and pathetic that the Border extension and partial removal of Royalston weren't done as part of the SWLRT project.

[COLSLAW5]

why would you remove royalston?

[twincitizen]

It's basically a frontage road that should no longer be necessary as the area is redeveloped around a new street grid. 5th Ave should be extended west to connect to Border.

Here's an image of potential/preferred long-term redevelopment confirming the concept:

[twincitizen]

Well this is fascinating: the exact section of Royalston that I mentioned (Border to 5th) is currently gone, just gravel. Couldn’t see any curbs going in but it looked sorta like it was being graded for street. I hope they aren’t putting the road back, that would be crazy given the plans for the area. It isn’t really critical now, even before any other grid repair in the area.

Sadly, no visible progress on the Border Avenue extension to Glenwood.

[blo442]

Bad news twincitizen - SWLRT scope includes reconstruction of Royalston all the way north/west to Border-Olson. There's layouts on the project website that show the extent of work. It's a shame that the planners came up with a visionary plan for the station area and then all parties involved in SWLRT design apparently never read it. Or maybe it's a case study in the awful project management of SWLRT that they are managing to waste millions of dollars rebuilding this road when the city would prefer they just spread some grass seed and walk away.

To make things even more fun, due to federal funding rules the city will have to pay back the feds if they remove that block of frontage road as part of the Olson Highway removal project. And Public Works doesn't exactly have extra money laying around after all the street projects that have blown their budgets since 2020. So the Royalston loop could be here to stay for the next 50-60 years. Yay.

[Bakken2016]

https://northloop.org/sphere-like-exper ... MTZieXRlcw

Well this is just dumb, we should be building housing in the Root District,not a tourist trap....

[twincitizen]

It's weird that this is literally the same property that the Wolves ownership group is talking about buying for the new arena. At this point, without some of the infrastructure changes taking place, I would actually oppose the addition of new housing in this area. This building needs to go, the Public Works traffic management / sign shop building needs to go. The City needs to take the lead on building out a street grid according to the station area master plan before anything new gets built.

[BikesOnFilm]

https://northloop.org/sphere-like-exper ... MTZieXRlcw

Well this is just dumb, we should be building housing in the Root District,not a tourist trap....

I don't think we'll have to worry about it for very long. When I saw the advertisement I thought "Huh, wouldn't something akin to The Sphere do better as a performing arts wing of the Mall of America?" But then after seeing inside, it's very clear that it's not akin to The Sphere at all, more like those traveling "Experience Van Gogh" shows that project a bunch of images on a wall for $30 a ticket.

Really bad marketing to make all your potential clients think of one of the most expensive and wildly ordained multimedia stages on the planet right before showing them a weird shaped event hall with screens.

[seanrichardryan]

Just a bad warehouse conversion.

[Oreos&Milk]

T-Wolves potential owners eying site adjacent to the Farmers Market.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... -lore.html

Honestly with today's Market.. I wonder what a Timber wolves stadium would look like if it was built into the MOA. Like that big overflow parking lot to the east. It be connected to TWO existing Metro lines (red and blue) and a potential 3rd if we count Riverview. Tons of hotels rooms, places for visitors to shop and dine at (during mall hours) and it really is pretty walkable as well.

I think Royalston could be a great place for more housing, even public housing if we can build it well even if it takes 5-15 years it be worth the wait. Instead of rushing to build ANOTHER stadium. Seems like every year we are building a new stadium.. next thing you know it were going to have to invent new sports to keep the stadium building trend in the twin cities going.. pickelball is a sport right? ..Maybe that can be our next stadium after this stadium? hmm