Federal Building & Post Office redevelopment speculation

[twincitizen]

MSP Business Journal has a story up about federally-owned real estate. With remote work it was inevitable that the GSA would start looking at consolidating offices and selling off surplus buildings. That will probably be accelerated by the current administration, despite somewhat conflicting with their return-to-office mandate. Nationally, what will mostly happen is the federal government will end its leases at property it doesn't own, consolidating into owned buildings. Minnesota does not have a ton of federally owned property relative to other states, so there's nothing to get too excited about here as far as office conversions, etc. Here's the article for those with a subscription: https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... -cuts.html The article doesn't actually mention post office properties, but since I'm starting a new topic we might as well throw that in here.

One building that has caught my attention for years is the Paul Wellstone Federal Building, which I had the opportunity to tour recently. Despite occupying a full downtown block, there's not that much going on inside. It's mostly one story above ground with a small 2-story section along the 3rd Ave frontage, plus a full basement. The users are a passport facility occupying most of the main level, with a HUD office in the upper level (mostly vacant due to remote work). The passport office is a nice active use that brings people downtown during the day, but that office could really be located in pretty much any building with good public access and parking nearby. They may have some unique security/shipping & receiving needs, but I don't think it's anything too out of the ordinary that couldn't be nearly any place else.

I would really like to see this building sold to a developer in 5 years or so, following completion of Sherman's Harmonia / Washington Yards project across the street. The location is just too ideal for more housing, and with a full block to work with, I think they could keep enough of the existing facade to satisfy preservationists. I'd be fine just retaining the 2-story portion and facade along 3rd Avenue, and tearing down the rest of it. The Washington & 2nd St sides are nothing special, and 2nd Ave is just a parking lot, so I don't think my proposal is too anti-preservation. Getting a retail space at the Washington & 2nd Ave corner would be big. It's always going to be a challenge to make Washington Avenue a consistent compelling experience from Whole Foods down to 3rd Avenue due to all the non-existent frontages on the former ING / Washington Square buildings, but Sherman's project and this block would start closing that gap.

I threw the post office in the title too, so others can speculate on that one. Post Office re-use is arguably less speculative than the federal building, since it's been city policy for decades that they want the parking ramp gone. Idk if anyone has insider info, but fr why is the post office sorting/shipping operation still there? It doesn't even necessarily have to move that far away, it could be in an industrial area in North or Northeast.

[MNdible]

Never forget.

[MNdible]

I feel like there was lots of speculation when the St. Paul post office moved to the Eagan facility that it could eventually handle all operations for the entire metro area. Maybe the extra work load of e-commerce changed that math, but it definitely doesn't make sense to be pushing all of those USPS semi-trailer trucks into downtown unnecessarily.

[Silophant]

I lived kitty-corner across the 2nd/Washington intersection for a few years, and spent a bunch of time daydreaming about the feds expanding it, building up on the parking lot and the center of the building while retaining the 2nd, Washington, and 3rd facades. That assumed that they'd never give up the whole block, though, which no longer seems like a safe assumption.

For the Post Office, my take has been that there's value in having all those good, union, no-college-degree-required jobs in a central, transit-accessible area, but I don't know that it has to be the downtown riverfront necessarily. Just spitballing, but what if the Northeast Armory redeveloped into just the west half of their three block long megalot, and sold the east half to USPS to add to their fleet garage lot and build a combined, EV-ready facility?

[BigIdeasGuy]

2 things worth noting that any redevelopment is going to have to overcome 1. the building is on the National Register of Historic Places and 2. it's named after Paul Wellstone and there will absolutely be loud complaints from some corners based on that as ridiculous as it sounds.

The first step with the Post Office site needs to be acquiring and tearing down ugly ass ramp at 1st and Hennepin

[COLSLAW5]

i never realized the post office was expanded in the early 90s adding on the whole back half of the main building. the parking ramp got added in the 70s

[Wezle]

Would the NRHP designation prevent building on top of the structure? When I was in Toronto last year, there was a lot of highrise development being done on top of historic buildings there while keeping the facade and majority of the interior intact.

The post office expansion was done really faithfully to the original. I don't mind the larger building, but the ramp needs to go.

[Silophant]

From what I understand, an NRHP designation mostly just unlocks historic preservation grants and/or tax subsidies for restoration, it doesn't really prevent changes to (or even demolition of) a designated structure like local designation does. That being said, I would of course expect any proposal for the building to generate truly exhausting amounts of Discourse and probably a rushed local designation to save the neighbors from the horror of a new building being built downtown.

[SurlyLHT]

Would the NRHP designation prevent building on top of the structure? When I was in Toronto last year, there was a lot of highrise development being done on top of historic buildings there while keeping the facade and majority of the interior intact.

The post office expansion was done really faithfully to the original. I don't mind the larger building, but the ramp needs to go.

A NRHP designation didn't stop Boston from building a 50-story tower on top of South Station. (It's a neat development if you ever get to pass through the station.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Station_Tower

[twincitizen]

Continuing my knack for being Nostradamus on this forum:

https://www.startribune.com/trump-admin ... /601228749

[BigIdeasGuy]

I really wish they could rotate the building 90 degrees so that the main 2 level facade is facing Washington. My grand vision would be to tear basically the entire 1 level part of the building but leaving the facade and building a Neo-Classical Carlyle sized condo tower in the center of the block leaving the 2 story section as the lobby and restaurant/coffee shop/co-working space.

Put the parking access off of 2nd St leaving less than ideal street frontages along 2nd and 3rd Ave. That would leave Washington with a significantly better frontage and possible porte-cochère like the Penfield has. Probably skyway connect it too along with a link to the Carlyle

[drgrant]

I think you could fit a nice slim tower in the parking lot without even touching the original building. Similar to Ryan's project on 4th & Park.

[martykoessel]

I wonder how the annex (the two-story structure across from the Carlyle at the corner of South First Street and 3rd Avenue) might function as a year-round market? With parking below street level? Maybe using the promenade and arcade facing the river in summertime?

[SurlyLHT]

It would be nice if they moved other Federal Offices and services there. The article doesn't mention the semi-nearby Social Security office. That must be leased? Terminate that lease and move them to the Wellstone building Downtown. Could the building be renovated and used as unique and beautiful offices for someone looking for something special?

I wonder how much of the Whipple building is occupied and where the folks would go if they sold it?

[SurlyLHT]

If the Whipple Building was sold and became housing. (Next to LRT and parkland) Could Minneapolis then annex that part of the unorganized Fort Snelling? According to Wikipedia 322 live on the territory.

[MNdible]

The Whipple building is a terrible housing conversion candidate. The "tower" portion of the building is about 240' per side. Buildings custom built for housing want to be roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of that width. You'd realistically need to carve a giant atrium out of the middle of the building to make it viable, and you'd still have the much wider two level plinth to deal with.

[SurlyLHT]

The Whipple building is a terrible housing conversion candidate. The "tower" portion of the building is about 240' per side. Buildings custom built for housing want to be roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of that width. You'd realistically need to carve a giant atrium out of the middle of the building to make it viable, and you'd still have the much wider two level plinth to deal with.

I'm talking about tearing it down, not converting it. It has tons of parking lots and etc. It'll be a nice place to build TOD.

[seanrichardryan]

Didn't GSA spend like 200m renovating the Whipple a few years back? It would make more sense to consolidate federal offices there from downtown. Still served somewhat well by transit.

[seanrichardryan]

11 years ago- https://www.redlakenationnews.com/story ... 17043.html

[twincitizen]

Didn't GSA spend like 200m renovating the Whipple a few years back? It would make more sense to consolidate federal offices there from downtown. Still served somewhat well by transit.

MSP Biz Journal: "Originally budgeted at $115 million as a stimulus project led by the General Services Administration, it wound up at $170 million or so — unless you include the interior, too (the GSA apparently didn't at first), which bumps it up to $196 million."

That renovation wrapped up over 10 years ago, safe to say more than $200 mil has been spent modernizing the building up to this point. It probably would make the most sense to consolidate government offices to this building and free up other spaces (like the Wellstone building) for repurposing/redevelopment.