urbanMSP

Whatever people's take on Nicollet I agree that we're getting wildly inconsistant results with recent projects in the area. Things built right like the Cedar Avenue trailhead, or River bottoms trail or the France ave boardwalk, contrasted with things like making pedestrians walk on the road to the Lyndale trailhead. Sometimes on the same project like the Portland cycletracks that end and dump bicylists on the street without connecting to the MUP north of 77th and we kept a four lane death road configuation on 106th while building a MUP and elimating two free right turns while keeping one and building a brand new one where there wasn't before. Or Xerxes and OSR where they built the northbound bicycle lane through the intersection but not southbound.

I agree- the higher profile projects get love, media coverage, and attention, but the smaller, piece meal reconstructions are kind of a black box, or at least are that way to many people.


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Here's a new proposal for a four-story, 180-unit apartment building on the site of Wixon Jewelers and five lots south of it. This is only 1/4 miles away from 98th Street Station/South Bloomington TC. All the units will be income-restricted to between 30% and 70% AMI. There is underground parking as well as a pretty large surface lot.



https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500176

wingedmolotov wrote:Here's a new proposal for a four-story, 180-unit apartment building on the site of Wixon Jewelers and five lots south of it. This is only 1/4 miles away from 98th Street Station/South Bloomington TC. All the units will be income-restricted to between 30% and 70% AMI. There is underground parking as well as a pretty large surface lot.



https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500176

Is this parking based on estimated need from residents or is it from parking mandates?

daveybabymsp wrote: November 4th, 2025, 5:49 pm

wingedmolotov wrote:Here's a new proposal for a four-story, 180-unit apartment building on the site of Wixon Jewelers and five lots south of it. This is only 1/4 miles away from 98th Street Station/South Bloomington TC. All the units will be income-restricted to between 30% and 70% AMI. There is underground parking as well as a pretty large surface lot.



https://permits.bloomingtonmn.gov/ProdP ... L202500176

Is this parking based on estimated need from residents or is it from parking mandates?

According to the plans it is 8% below the mandated parking.

Now I understand why they spent the last three months digging up my street to upgrade the sanitary sewer.

Although it seems kind of symbolic of the decline of East Bloomington that a high end watch shop is being replaced with low income housing, the actual reason is the Wixon Jewelers owners wanted to retire with no family to take over, and selling the business wasn't viable because of the "you have to earn the right to buy our stuff" attitude of their Swiss watch suppliers.

At one time they had planned to move to the old Gander Mountain building and turn it into a larger shop combined with a watch museum, but the 08 recession halted that plan.