Highland Bridge: Ford Site Redevelopment

[Cat385]

Re-opening of the MRB thru Hidden Falls scheduled for next Wednesday. We still need to install guardrail and permanent fencing along the walls.

[atburns]

Looking forward to it! Do you know when people will be able to walk along the new creek?

[Cat385]

We are trying for substantial completion of the streets and sidewalks yet this year. I am unaware of any plans to open the parks to the public until next year.

[RedDutch]

I fear rent control is going to severely hamper this whole project.

[Mdcastle]

Yup.
https://www.startribune.com/developers- ... 600113731/

Less than 24 hours after St. Paul voters approved one of the country's most stringent rent control policies, Nicolle Goodman's phone started to ring. Developers were calling to tell the city's director of planning and economic development they were placing projects on hold, putting hundreds of new housing units at risk....
At the Highland Bridge site, where construction is well underway, Ryan Companies was scheduled to submit three building plans to the city this week — but Tony Barranco, Ryan's north region president, said Wednesday those reviews have been postponed indefinitely in light of the referendum's outcome..."If our banking partners won't loan us dollars to build the buildings that are planned as market rate because they can more safely lend their dollars elsewhere, we will not be able to build the market rate projects" that help subsidize affordable housing, Barranco said

[Cat385]

Mississippi River Boulevard has been re-opened. There is currently no access to the new park.

[SurlyLHT]

Good article in the Sunday Paper explains how the TIF planning falls apart with the rent cap allegedly. (Author admits conflict of interest)

https://www.startribune.com/schafer-st- ... 600116243/


St. Paul rent control vote turns builders, bankers away from capital city
"The rent control ordinance knocks the legs out from under the market-rate housing that was going to pay for Highland Bridge.

The mechanism for making the whole project work is tax increment financing. That's where money borrowed to finance things like a stormwater system gets paid back from the incremental property taxes generated by new buildings.

The city approved the creation of the TIF district for Highland Bridge five years ago, and it was meant to fund about $53.5 million worth of infrastructure. Other TIF districts totaling more than $40 million at Highland Bridge, so far, will fund affordable housing."

[datasage]

Pulte has released pricing for the first 22 row houses. These units will be on the northernmost block next to the water feature. Named building 6 & 7. Pricing will start at $595k for smaller units in building 6 and $760k for the larger units in building 7. Pricing already includes the lot premium.

The first building will have structural options pre-selected, but design options will be available for most of them. Offers for this first set of units will be accepted mid January.

[Cat385]

Building 6 was started Wednesday.

[RedDutch]

Is there a rendering for these somewhere?

[datasage]

Is there a rendering for these somewhere?

Virtual tours of all the unit layouts:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT0Xvv ... 6bg/videos

[datasage]

Talking with the Pulte site foreman, the rowhomes will have EVSE availability as an option. He did not know the amperage off the top of his head.
Hopefully 60 or 80, and honestly I think the feature should be standard. 5 years from now it will be.

Installing at minimum 50A breaker and a 14-50 outlet should indeed for code standard by now. Above 50A things do get dicier. Hopefully very soon.

Panel will be 150A standard. All units will also be solar ready, but you can add an option for 3-5 KW on build.

[COLSLAW5]

with the weather warming up does anyone know when they might start opening up some of the parks and trails?

[twincitizen]

I'll say again, I can't wait to bike around the new streets and just geek out.

Aside from building construction activities impacting certain streets, I feel on one hand that if the streets are complete, streetlights turned on, and have been deeded to public ownership, then they ought to be open to the public. On the other hand, I completely understand there are security concerns with having a bunch of active construction sites but without any residents around yet (eyes on the street), that could be a disaster if anyone can just come in at night and easily steal copper, doing damage or worse, burn a building down. It's probably a lot cheaper and easier to leave the fencing up for another couple of months than to hire the amount of security it would take to watch over a site this large with multiple active construction projects. As more of the buildings currently under construction (not including the smaller rowhomes) are fully enclosed and nearing completion, I would hope they'll start opening streets to the public. That shouldn't be more than a couple months away.

[seanrichardryan]

Cretin & Montreal are supposed to open this spring I think.

[altus4]

Yes, a portion of the streets are supposed to open "spring 2022." Specifically, the green lines in this map, with the fencing moving back to the red lines:

street opening.png

This screenshot is taken from this "community update" PDF, which is an interesting slide deck if you have not seen it:
https://highlandbridge.com/wp-content/u ... ting-1.pdf

[twincitizen]

This screenshot is taken from this "community update" PDF, which is an interesting slide deck if you have not seen it: https://highlandbridge.com/wp-content/u ... ting-1.pdf

Whoa, that's one hell of a status update! Even if it's nearly 6 months old now, the PDF is well worth a scroll for anyone with an interest in this development. Plenty of details I wasn't previously aware of.

[Silophant]

Sooo Highland Park that the first question of the Q&A is a local wondering where they can park when they drive in to enjoy the green space.

[altus4]

Yeah, a lot of interesting details in there. Two of the parks, plus the central "stream" water feature, should open up as part of the site opening—looking forward to checking them out. On foot

[altus4]

For a more recent update, last week the highland district council posted a 5 minute video update from Ryan Companies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FaJj69dT2I

Highlights:
- What is currently going up (already-funded market rate rentals at new Lunds location, affordable housing, senior housing, row homes, and medical office)
- What is paused due to rent control (remainder of planned multifamily, including remaining affordable housing that would be funded in part by TIF from market rate buildings)
- University of St Thomas athletics facility plans (still seems uncertain if this will happen, but they did share a potential site plan of what these could look like)