urbanMSP

But this is all what I'm saying about Minneapolis not valuing historic structures. You all don't value it, many people like just wiping the slate clean, and we've been suffering the results of that already, lets just keep on keeping on.

Historic is a word that means something, and it doesn't mean old. So let's please stop calling this historic. It's old, and that can have some value in and of itself, but it's not historic. Nothing notable happened here. It's not historic. Stop calling it historic.

How about if we think of it (and all others like it) this way: would you want to see the building incorporated into the new development or left as-is IF it didn't hinder the new development whatsoever? If so, then I think you have to at least stop and think about ways to preserve the existing building and see if it's feasible. If not, and it's not historic, then at least you followed a process that gave the building a chance to save itself.

It's an ugly 3 story warehouse and nowhere near worth a 2nd thought of preserving. Let's not get carried away here folks.

Does this even count as preserving an old building?

As one of the people responsible for fanning all these flames, I just want to say this: no, I don't think that building was Historic. No, I don't think it was particularly beautiful. Or important. Or significant. Or special. I also don't have any concept of the engineering requirements of a high rise or parking ramp. I simply thought that integrating an old building into the new development would be neat. That's all. Just neat.

It would have been nice to save the facade to wrap around the ramp, but that probably would have been ungodly expensive.

I think the lesson here is that the stadium is responsible for some very poor urbanism.

Poor urbanism? It's a freaking 3 story god awful looking warehouse! Seriously?

The stadium itself is responsible for some very poor urbanism.
https://streets.mn/2013/05/14/minnesota- ... an-design/

An opinion piece from someone who obviously dislikes the stadium and sports in general.
This building will be used like the dome was, almost daily, many times 2-3 events will be held in a single day. The notion that this will be unused 95 % of the time is not only a lie, but quite likely the exact opposite of reality.

The stadium is the catalyst for creating an entire new urban district downtown that was a massive sea of surface parking lots for decades. Terrible urbanism!

But the same was said for the dome at the time.......the park and its buildings is more than in 30 yrs of dome

But the same was said for the dome at the time.......the park and its buildings is more than in 30 yrs of dome

I think we have beat the dead horse of the zoning that was in place around the dome since it was built until around 2010 was to keep the parking lots in place and encourage development closer to the core because the city was worried that with everyone fleeing to the suburbs our downtown core would disperse. Now that zoning has changed and that is a part of the catalyst for development in the neighborhood, not just the stadium, it's a culmination of transit and changes in zoning, the new stadium, and re-urbanization. Hopefully it's a perfect storm of ingredients.

If developer is on a multi-year contract - it seems likely that we won't see a revised design on the tower for years. Does that seem right - I was just thinking about how long it may be before we ever see a revised design. I would be surprised if Magellan wouldn't want to move this forward soon. With LPM virtually wrapped up and it being successful - seems like they would want to strike while the irons hot

But the same was said for the dome at the time.......the park and its buildings is more than in 30 yrs of dome

I hope you are aware of how much this area is changing already, let alone what will come down the pike.

Poor urbanism? It's a freaking 3 story god awful looking warehouse! Seriously?

It's not god awful, it's nothing, which is kind of the point. I'd prefer that in active use to a parking ramp, at least at ground level. And the stadium is being built with kind of a heavy hand, it probably would have been just as easy to build a parking ramp on another lot and leave this unremarkable building alone, but the ramp had to be THERE so the building comes down.

I think as far as preserving these turn of the century warehouses, at least on this end of the city, we're in a weird position. When they were built the city wasn't big enough in that area to build them really tall, like we did in the Warehouse district. So they're low hanging fruit. Older cities were bigger at that same point in time, so their boring warehouse and office buildings are taller, so they're easier to protect because they're still providing a good amount of value. A 3 story warehouse doesn't provide a whole lot of space in comparison to a 10 or 20 story tower, but replacing an 8 story warehouse with a 10 story building becomes a much different proposition.

I think this argument should end about now. I think I might have accidentally started this and I didn't mean to. J2K, please do not be a straw man and start arguments on this forum, we have enough of that already. The building is now gone and we could go on forever on whether or not it was a good idea, and there will be a lot of bias because it's a stadium issue as well.

quit horsing around guys

Strawman...? Wow. I was simply stating I don't care for the building. No intent to "start an argument." I respect others opinions that differ from mine which is why I come to this thread in the first place. I'm sorry some folks get offended if someone else's OPINION differs from there's.
I will refrain from further posts. Geez... Bye

Walking by today and the building is leveled. They did not even strip it first and I saw the old steam radiators in the ruin. I would hope that all of that get recycled in the end. IT is over with, the house of cards has fallen. I just hope that they put retail at street level like they had claimed once up on a time. But we know how fairy tale end, not always the way we want them to.