Uptown Hotel Discussion

[Minneboy]

Well thought out response Thatch. This guy was raised in CARAG, was on the CARAG Board as a senior in High School. went to the UofM and worked for a prominent developer and last I knew was raising his family in CARAG as well. Before the internet became all the rage, Thatcher's dad was often seen to have letters written in the commentary of the Strib. Thatcher is the very definition of proactive.

[PhilmerPhil]

In the meantime, let's get this petition to 100+ signatures!

https://www.change.org/p/lisa-bender-mi ... eapolis-mn

It's currently at 88, with the competing petition against the project at 81.

[thatchio]

those are kind words but I'm not in CARAG (was in Kenny for about 7 years recently) but am in Seattle now for a "sabbatical." And the awesome thing about CARAG, it is a passionate bunch who are willing to take action and be advocates. Even when I don't agree with everyone there, most were willing to put in the time to organize...which was really valuable experience/perspective.

has the hotel folks or the advocates talked with the business community about this project and tried to rally those troops?

[grant1simons2]

They were really passionate about parking. Seriously, the meeting was a lot of worries about where all the cars would go. The secondary fear would be seeing a 6 story building at the end of the block. The Graves tried to sell it in multiple ways, and if you were at the meeting you would know that. One of the ways is that they wanted to bring a neighborhood restaurant into the hotel. They said they'd be open to opening up the event space to CARAG for neighborhood meeting.

[TroyGBiv]

The ramp at Calhoun Square is almost always open... the massive ramp at the Mosaic is never even close to being half full... There are hundreds of empty spaces in the uptown at any given time. I hope that the parking argument gets dismissed

[Silophant]

Parking you have to pay American dollars for is no parking at all.

[Sacrelicio]

Parking you have to pay American dollars for is no parking at all.

My girlfriend's aunt used to work in downtown St. Paul and she would move her car every two hours to avoid paying for parking. She refuses to pay for parking anywhere. Was crazy to hear.

[Minneboy]

In the meantime, let's get this petition to 100+ signatures!

https://www.change.org/p/lisa-bender-mi ... eapolis-mn

It's currently at 88, with the competing petition against the project at 81.

Please pardon me PP if I got off your track.

[nerdljos]

The petition competition made Kare 11 too, but fairly biased toward opposition, apart from one interviewee.

http://www.kare11.com/mb/news/uptown-ne ... l/21988033

[mattaudio]

WedgeLive has an interesting take about how select CARAG residents were invited to a LHENA land use committee meeting, yet the author (a member of the LHENA land use committee) was not made aware of his own meeting. I'm thinking I'll write to the NCR office at the City and let them know of my concerns about this.

[PhilmerPhil]

Check out the comments. Not really surprising though. People love to hate Uptown. I wonder where they all live.

https://www.facebook.com/citypages/post ... 3784321542

[Sacrelicio]

Check out the comments. Not really surprising though. People love to hate Uptown. I wonder where they all live.

https://www.facebook.com/citypages/post ... 3784321542

So replacing an Arby's with a hotel will ruin the neighborhood? When was Uptown some grungy, "authentic" district anyways? The 80s? It's been a nice shopping area for years now.

[grant1simons2]

As early as 20 years ago. But it has now moved way beyond that point.

[Sacrelicio]

As early as 20 years ago. But it has now moved way beyond that point.

Even then it was becoming somewhat of a nice shopping area.

[twincitizen]

Just to make sure we're not getting too far ahead of things here, has this proposal gone back to Planning Commission since being revised down to 5-6 stories?

I'm very interested to hear what city staff has to say about the new proposal. I would not be surprised if they still had some lingering concerns about ingress/egress or setbacks, etc. It's still a fairly bold proposal on a constrained site. In addition to the usual setback variances and whatnot, remember that they are asking for the site's zoning to be changed. That is a significantly larger "ask" than the typical CUP and setback variances, etc.

I'm just saying - we (hotel supporters) should be prepared for the possibility of staff not being 100% supportive of everything Graves is asking for here.

EDIT: Duh...this was bumped to the Feb. 8 PC meeting due to pending changes to the plans. Staff report is here, but does not include full code review or recommendations since there will be changes: http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 172336.pdf

[RailBaronYarr]

Remember, the re-zone to C3A is specifically to allow for a hotel use. It was discussed in another thread perhaps, but there's a history there where hotels were on the table to be allowed in C2 but some petty councilmember politics stopped it at the last moment. C2 districts have the same height max as C3A, and the FAR limit id 1.7 and 2.7, respectively (both of which are lower than the requested 3.78). Personally, I don't think the CPC council would balk at any of these issues (re-zone, variances, CUP for height) were it in the Uptown Activity Center with a C2 zoning. The question is if the height/bulk on the south side of Lake is appropriate given the SAP guidelines and current surrounding uses.

One note on the setback issue, I do think there's some conflict in how the SAP & Comp Plan talk about development along commercial corridors and what the setback requirements are. Since most commercial corridors in this city run along block faces without alleys in the middle, the issue rarely comes up. But in this case, the design has the building right up against the alley, with a 3' pushback from the sidewalk and 2' alley stepback at the corner, both to provide better views. Guidelines seem to state that commercial frontage should be as consistent as possible, so I'm not sure what the right path is here. Vehicles won't use the alley to enter the small parking/valet area, only to exit. On one hand, this is similar to parking entrance/exits in many buildings along commercial corridors, so there's precedent. On the other, I do agree this might be tricky, even with the view triangle, since valets will likely be fairly quick to exit the alley given their job. Handling parking ingress/egress is a challenge in any urban environment, though.

[twincitizen]

Reminder: This goes to the Planning Commission next Monday, Feb. 8 at 4:30pm. If you're a supporter, plan to be there.
If you haven't already, email a quick note indicating your support to [email protected] and [email protected]

I'm hoping the staff report is put online pretty soon. I'm very curious what the remaining staff concerns will be and what their ultimate recommendation will be. If there were anything major (particularly physical concerns like valet egress via the alley, etc.)

Do we know yet if they'd be parking vehicles at Calhoun Square ramp or Mozaic? Just trying to picture the various routes a valet driver would take coming NB out of the alley and EB on Lake. Possible concern: If cars were headed to the Calhoun Square ramp, I could see valet drivers be tempted to head SB thru the alley and take a right on 31st. I would have to side with the adjacent neighbors there and say that would not be appropriate.

EDIT: I guess I had been thinking that one of our talking points was "people who complain about hotel parking impacts are cray, because they already have permit parking" Turns out, that talking point does not hold up! Surprise to me, the 3000 block of Dupont does not have permit parking, nor does the 3100 block of Emerson. So yeah...(some) neighbors are kinda right about that one. What's stopping these folks from joining the critical parking district?

Uptown permit parking: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 136316.pdf

[Minneboy]

According to that pdf file it looks likes the Permit Parking CPA 21 expired the end of January. If you read the comments where Calhoun Square is.

[twincitizen]

That's just the annual renew date

[Blaisdell Greenway]

Are any of you greater uptown folks on Nextdoor? It's the facebook for neighborhoods. The general consensus on there is that a hotel is good for uptown! but not this lot because it's south of Lake street which is not "uptown."

Looks like I'll be going to the planning commission to add my support.