urbanMSP

My hunch is it won't be for sale for long. It is an ideal location for residential development. The LRT will be a wonderful asset to downtown St Paul and is going to attract many more people to live there.

Indeed, St. Paul is now the suburb with the hottest growth.

While I like the idea of more density around the Franklin Ave station, I hope this development doesn't encroach upon future opportunity to change the layout of the neighborhood to reconnect the grid and make Hiawatha less of a freeway north of 26th. Those highway bridges at Cedar and Franklin look l...

Agreed. I hope the new stadium doesn't set back the organic neighborhood growth we've seen. If anything, I think they should design the stadium so it doesn't have much of an impact beyond its footprint... These game-day plazas, tailgating lots, etc are a blight 98% of the time when there's not a foo...

The original suggestion for a MWB in this thread was for one block, presumably Nicollet between Lake and 29th. Therefore there would be ROW. Still, probably not a good idea considering it would provide inconsistent setbacks on the infill site. What is being done to unify transit in this area? Betwee...

26th and 28th are great one ways, but could use improvements such as bumpouts, more green space, the occasional turn lane where warranted, and maybe only two through lanes. It's really excessive to have four lanes in each direction on the eastern parts.

As much as I don't support streetcars on Nicollet...

Is that because you support mattaudio's plan of LRT under Nicollet to Richfield/Bloomington, and moving the Southwest line to Nicollet then north on a shared underground alignment through downtown?

Never been in the Sears, but it amazes me that a giant 4+ square block piece of parking lot was able to be built a block from the Capitol. It seems like a prime spot for redevelopment. Have there ever been plans?

All this Stadium development could be used to preserve ROW for a double-level tunnel under 5th or 6th street.... Upper level for LRT and lower level for heavy rail connecting to the NP #9 bridge. Bummer we don't have infinite money and forward thinking.

nasa, I think the point is that suburbanites come into the city for amenities and entertainment they can't find in the suburbs, so there's no point in the city building suburban-style projects to attract suburbanites when the suburbs do a better job of that.

I'd rather see the Armory as an indoor public market that serves the growing Riverfront and Elliot Park residential neighborhoods 365 days a year. Then have it front a public square at the Thrivent parking block (5th Av/Portland/6th St/7th St) surrounded by new residential and mixed-use mid-rises.

I agree with all of the structural issues, but isn't the main one that there are many express buses that are a fraction of the cost that are competing with Northstar?

I know I had posted this a year ago on Minnescraper.. http://goo.gl/maps/wbpAS

Wish there's a way the Thrivent surface lot could become a park fronted by mid-rise mixed use, similar to Mears Park in Lowertown.

I also seem to recall hearing about transactions with the block Lehmans and that wonderful Finance and Commerce building are on... that some sort of new medical development was planned for that block, too.

Maybe if the faces of the Southdale block (along France/York/66th/69th) eventually see dense urban development, it could sort of be said that Victor Gruen's vision will finally be realized and the era of auto-dependency of the enclosed shopping center would be waning.

The idea: http://goo.gl/maps/5fmNs

Maybe someday France Ave could become a multiway boulevard to still handle traffic volumes but provide for development opportunities fronting the roadway. Then, an extension of Greenway Streetcar via Linden Hills to France, then south to 494!

Agreed, the streets need to change, just as they changed in the past when they were designed to funnel high volumes of cars during peak hours. Most one-ways in the downtown core could really be two lanes instead of three, and bumpouts would go a long way to improve the pedestrian realm. Look at how ...

I wonder if there's any way to rebuild the rail line on the south side of the river near Water Street... http://goo.gl/maps/ldo1r The biggest problem here would be all the redevelopment near Plato Blvd, and I'm not even sure what the original alignment was immediately across from downtown. The main ...

There was recently a post about these on streets.mn, considering such treatment for Hiawatha Ave. My main concern was that there's not much room between the southbound lanes and the LRT, meaning it would be hard to develop. A potential solution could be to eventually move Hiawatha east with redevelo...

I don't see a thread for Abbot Northwestern, Childrens', Allina HQ, etc.

There's a skyway under construction across 26th between Childrens and Abbot.

Also was the MTM parking ramp discussed on Minnescraper? I think many parking structures could benefit from this...
http://goo.gl/maps/h3gL6