urbanMSP

A ton of "locals" do convert to the street and ignore the Sabo bridge including myself. During rush hour it's common to see a gathering of bikes waiting to cross Hiawatha at the 28th street light. It's way quicker, even with waiting for the light. Personally, I think they need to change the timing of the light or eliminate the crossing given that the bicycles hit the pedestrian button and make the cars wait 40+ seconds during rush hour. Given that this bridge is going diagonally and that your would technically have to cross two streets I don't believe it's as likely to have the same problem.

But the only reason it's crossing two streets is because they are forcing the trail to cross one of those two streets just to use the bridge.

Per a locked Biz Journal article, this is already on hold as one of the property owners pulled back. Almost certainly had to be the owner of the Centennial Shops, not the owner of 7200-7250 France offices

This project already reported dead/being changed: https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... loper.html

I can't open the article tho, so I have no clue what the story is.

Here's more info from that article:

The real estate company said it never approved plans submitted to the city that showed the Michigan-based firm building a 19-story apartment tower on the parking lot of its Centennial Shops retail center. The firm may be working up much different plans for France Avenue though.

“Our name being on the plans was not approved,” said Ramco spokeswoman Dawn Hendershot. “I don’t want to leave you with the impression we aren’t interested moving forward with improvement projects for our site, but we aren’t ready to go to the city with a specific plan like this.”

One reason Ramco Gershenson didn't approve of Tuesday's plans is because it's considering a different concept that would involve demolishing the Macy's Furniture Gallery just north of Centennial Lakes and replacing it with a pair of mid-rise apartment buildings above new retail space.

A little more info & my reaction:

Dawn Hendershot, a Ramco-Gershenson spokeswoman, said the company did not approve the proposal submitted this week. She said the only aspect of the project the company discussed with EG Capital was the potential for a bike path connection across France Avenue South. “Our only relationship is that we are community associates committed to improving the city of Edina in concert with what the community has planned for that area,”

Yikes. Sounds like EG Capital really jumped the gun on this one. Pretty unprofessional to submit something to the city without the full support of all property owners involved.

One reason it seemed a little fishy to me is that parking is already really tight in the surface lot for Potbelly/Blick/FiveGuys/etc. The cause is that too many customers of Container Store and Pinstripes park in the surface lot, instead of in the multi-level parking garage attached to those businesses, hogging up the short-term parking meant for Potbelly et al. Eliminating a big chunk of that surface lot would probably require Ramco-Gershenson (Centennial Shops owner) to rethink the tenant mix in that building (or maybe tear it down & redevelop), as people going to Potbelly and various service/retail businesses aren't going to be inclined to deal with the hassle of parking 3 stories up in the ramp just to grab a sandwich or art supplies or whatever. It turned out to be too good to be true, so I'm not entirely shocked there.

That said, good to hear Ramco-Gershenson is looking at developing the Macy's Furniture property with a couple mid-rise buildings (though I assume 6-story stick, probably similar to the recent Byerly's redevelopment to the north). It's kind of a neat building inside, albeit utilitarian looking outside. I don't think anyone has reported yet that Macy's has put the property up for sale, so I'd expect to hear something about that soon. This site could easily hold at least 400 units on its own. I hope they are still able to work out something on the bridge, even if the one tower proposed for the Potbelly parking lot doesn't come to fruition.

I wonder if EG Capital will resubmit a proposal just for 7200-7250 France...they don't actually own either property. 7200 is owned by local developer Bosclair (their 5-story project was rejected a couple years ago) and 7250 has a separate owner...this was the first we've heard of redeveloping that property. The bridge would've been a nice feature, but they can still redevelop these properties without it. If this whole idea falls apart, I'd expect 7200 will get redeveloped in the near future, while 7250 might not. 7250 is not a horrible land use today...there's still a place for class-C med/office buildings in the area.

Interesting that it appears the portion of Gallagher Drive east of France is built entirely on private land (the Macy's parcel).

The trail too. I'm sure the city has a permanent easement for both. Redevelopment & re-platting could mean that they'd officially sell (or more likely donate) that property to the city.

Since this project is dead for the moment, I feel somewhat comfortable going O/T .
Fun fact: everything between Xerxes and France, south of 72nd St (Byerlys) and down to the Bloomington border at Minnesota Dr/78th St is in the Richfield School District. Probably not a ton of school-age kids moving into these new luxury apartment buildings, but there are bound to be a few...especially down the road as the prices come down, residents have kids, etc. With open enrollment, I'm sure many will try to get their kids into Edina schools, but I'm sure some will end up in Richfield. I wonder if Sheridan Hills (Richfield's west side elementary school) and Richfield Middle will see an influx of students in 5-10 years.

I have to image anything that comes to the Macy's Furniture store site will have a major reorientation to the Promenade for the residents. An elevated trail bridge here has some merit.

On the 7200 and 7250 parcels, does that essentially make a single project between 72nd and Gallagher? If it does I hope the city can twist a street linking Gallagher and 72nd out of it. I see it as being a bit of value because right now residents must get out to France to get south, I think requiring France to get around unreasonably tilts residents perception of "traffic". Giving them a way to avoid France a little bit with a new grid connection only helps.

Past objections to 7200 were a lot to do with perceptions of traffic, I wonder if the 7250 site consolidated to this would make nearly all site ingress/egress from Gallagher muted lot of the objection to “but traffic!”

Fun fact: everything between Xerxes and France, south of 72nd St (Byerlys) and down to the Bloomington border at Minnesota Dr/78th St is in the Richfield School District. Probably not a ton of school-age kids moving into these new luxury apartment buildings, but there are bound to be a few...especially down the road as the prices come down, residents have kids, etc. With open enrollment, I'm sure many will try to get their kids into Edina schools, but I'm sure some will end up in Richfield. I wonder if Sheridan Hills (Richfield's west side elementary school) and Richfield Middle will see an influx of students in 5-10 years.

I found it kind of ridiculous that City of Edina wanted Richfield Public Schools to cede some of their territory to the Edina district. Luxury apartments that pay toward district levy without requiring services seem like ideal growth within a school district. I see no reason Richfield should cede any of that valuable Southdale land.

I think it's unfortunate that people cherry-pick districts, since it exacerbates existing disparities. I don't have kids, so I guess I can't judge it too harshly. But I'd think people would be less particular for elementary school than high school.

I see no reason Richfield should cede any of that valuable Southdale land.

Is it cynical to see this as Edina not wanting other school districts to get better so their school district remains even more desirable in comparison?

There had been a movement in Edina to bring in every neighborhood that is currently other school districts into the Edina SD. It was in headlines when parts of Parkwood Knolls tried detaching from Hopkins SD. Because the land values are so high in Parkwood Knolls Hopkins SD said no dice.

Lots to dig into from the submitted documents the city council looked at tonight. Find the .pdf at the following link.
https://edina.novusagenda.com/AgendaPub ... tingID=463
In the mean time I'm going to throw up a ton of screen shots of stuff. Go check it out yourself though! I loved the height comparison in the district.
Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.09.16 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
Yup, the site include the previously-doomed 7200 address. Next, let's see some of the massing...


Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.12.49 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.15.53 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
I guess I'm a fan of the really wide sidewalks, even having them backed off the habitually high-speed drivers on France. Lane-narrowing only helps so much... I like the overhang, I wish the city get them to make a functional awning over the retail spaces though.


Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.11.56 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
That's the context of the bike bridge, and the larger trail system nearby.


Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.13.53 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
What this shows is the circulation of the bike trails through the site. I like that they included a bike trail cut-through along the west edge of the property. I dislike they have a bike route run right in front of the ramp to underground parking, that's a really bad idea. What could go wrong.
But we also see that the 7200 building will have residents access from Gallagher instead of 72nd. Should cut off the "but teh congestion on our fine residential streets".


Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.15.20 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
Screen Shot 2017-09-06 at 10.15.29 PM by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
These are where Three Rivers is objecting, this shows the internal circulation of the bike route, and the real pain point ... the switchback. Yeah, that's kinda tight. I hope they could look at rounding it off, there seems space for a gentler turn.

I thought there was an article in the business journal like 2 days after this was announced saying that it was a no go?

I thought there was an article in the business journal like 2 days after this was announced saying that it was a no go?

The DUAL tower was a no-go, and the project was scrapped, and they came back up with this one-tower approach. However, I think I saw as recently as yesterday that the pedestrian/bike bridge was NOT likely going to be part of this project. So that is a bit peculiar.

Thanks for the updates and pics, Anondson!

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Aside from the "two parcels" bit, I stand behind every word of this. The trail detour and bridge serve no purpose other than to make this development look more interesting to ... someone.

To me, this screams "we have two parcels that aren't in the best location relative to each other and the trail, but it would look cool in our proposal if we could throw a bridge over this intersection so let's hope no one notices we made the trail way harder to use".

Three Rivers agrees, they don't want the bridge: http://www.startribune.com/three-rivers ... 442803593/

There is already a marked crossing with stop lights which Vlaming stressed was safe and sufficient for travelers. “Three Rivers staff would be hard pressed to justify to the Three Rivers Board of Commissioners the need for a grade-separated crossing at this location,” he wrote.

Minneapolis-based EG Capital, which owns the property where the office buildings would be demolished, and DJR Architecture, which created the master plan for the development, have said that they won’t build the bridge themselves though they would like for it to be a possibility. The bike-pedestrian bridge could cost about $2 million to $3 million, said Dean Dovolis, principal at DJR Architecture.

Seems to be (at least partially) a ploy to garner public and policymaker support for their development project. Building a tower here is a pretty big ask, and the developer group felt they would have better chances by including a fancy bridge (except JK we're not paying for it, we thought Three Rivers would jump at the possibility)

Eeeeeverybody wants a handout....

Three Rivers agrees, they don't want the bridge: http://www.startribune.com/three-rivers ... 442803593/

There is already a marked crossing with stop lights which Vlaming stressed was safe and sufficient for travelers. “Three Rivers staff would be hard pressed to justify to the Three Rivers Board of Commissioners the need for a grade-separated crossing at this location,” he wrote.

Minneapolis-based EG Capital, which owns the property where the office buildings would be demolished, and DJR Architecture, which created the master plan for the development, have said that they won’t build the bridge themselves though they would like for it to be a possibility. The bike-pedestrian bridge could cost about $2 million to $3 million, said Dean Dovolis, principal at DJR Architecture.

Seems to be (at least partially) a ploy to garner public and policymaker support for their development project. Building a tower here is a pretty big ask, and the developer group felt they would have better chances by including a fancy bridge (except JK we're not paying for it, we thought Three Rivers would jump at the possibility)

Yes, this is ridiculous. Particularly since they're asking that such bridge divert from its natural path (staying on south side of Gallagher), and not even providing a good path to get back to its real alignment.

I still like the development overall, but if they're going to propose a bridge, they'd better be planning to pay for it.