Transit Oriented Development : Development News

At a century-old brick building in St. Paul's Mid-City area, lawn mower-makers have given way to CodeWeavers. And the engineers at the software firm that goes by that name will be joined this week by educators working for the Minnesota Literacy Council. With the two tenants, the building will be 60-62 percent leased.

The 18,000 square-foot factory/warehouse now known as The Foundry at Raymond is the 15th property near the crossroads of Raymond and University avenues to be renovated by Update Company, a family-owned development firm with more than three decades in the neighborhood. Partner Sandy Jacobs says Update currently owns and manages eight buildings in this commercial and industrial section of the St. Anthony Park neighborhood.

Jacobs remembers a less-vibrant era in the 1970s when her parents' home-based painting business began to evolve into Update. She figures the firm's Midtown Commons office conversion of a pair of buildings in 1990 was a turning point for the area. "That when things really started to gel," Jacobs says.

Now she can point prospective tenants toward numerous nearby amenities, including the Edge Coffee Shop, Hampden Park Co-op, Gremlin Theater, and Caf� Biaggio. CodeWeavers has found the location midway between downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis so convenient for employees to bike to work that they installed a shower.

A Central Corridor light-rail transit station will be under construction at Raymond and University next year, eventually increasing the development potential of surrounding land. The St. Paul Port Authority has scooped up a nearby former trucking property, Jacobs said.

Office workers aren't the only ones finding the once desolate area more appealing. Jacobs says a newly landscaped stormwater-runoff collection pond at the Foundry has attracted a recent eagle.

Source: Sandy Jacobs, Update Company
Writer: Chris Steller

For the fourth fall, volunteers are fanning out across town to count how many bicyclists and pedestrians pass by a given location over a two-hour period.

The Twin Cities is one of four places selected for a bike/walk program funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and measuring trends in bicycle and foot traffic is an important part of the project, says Tony Hull of Transit For Livable Communities, the nonprofit group working with local governments on "Bike/Walk Twin Cities." (The other places are less urban: Sheboygan, Wis.; Columbia, Mo.; and Marin County, Calif.)

Counts by humans with clipboards are needed because bikes and pedestrians are too light to trip the rubber strips that planners stretch across roads to count motor-vehicle traffic volume. The data lets transit advocates and city officials factor in all forms of transportation rather than focusing solely on the flow of cars and trucks.

Volunteers get training to ensure accuracy and consistency, then head out to 48 spots where people like to bike and walk. A few locations have seen a doubling or even tripling of bike and pedestrian traffic from 2007 to 2009. Most saw percentage-point increases in the double digits. An observer along a busy route can expect to see several hundred bicycles over two hours of counting.

(This year's count could still use a few good volunteers. If you can help, check out this link.)

By Hull's reckoning, the traffic levels of bikes and pedestrians are increasing at a rate that raises the question, "Do we need more capacity?" Bulking up the infrastructure dedicated to non-motorized traffic, like bike lanes and paths, may be needed, he says. Consider, for example, the Midtown Greenway, which has become so popular it can suffer crowded rush hours and near-traffic jams. In places like that, Hull says, the need for transit "starts getting to the next level."

Source: Tony Hull, Transit for Livable Communities
Writer: Chris Steller

One of the might've-beens about the Central Corridor light rail line that's now under construction is a route not taken at its Minneapolis end. University of Minnesota officials pushed hard for an alternative plan that would have seen trains skirt campus by swinging through the Dinkytown commercial district rather than plowing down Washington Avenue, close to vibration-sensitive research facilities. (The university dropped a lawsuit over the vibration issue last week.)

One of the advantages offered by the alternative route to downtown via Dinkytown was a proximity to land ripe for a wave of development of the sort it seemed only LRT could bring. But redevelopment is happening in the area in a big way anyway, even despite a lousy lending environment. One firm, Doran Companies, has just broken ground on its second big Dinkytown project, the 412 Lofts at Fourth Street and 13th Avenue SE.

It's to be a five-story, 102-unit apartment building with two levels of underground parking, says Jim LaValle, Doran's vice president of development. It's not student-only--that would be illegal under fair housing laws--but LaValle says the 412 Lofts will cater to the close-to-campus environment.

A year ago, Doran broke ground on Sydney Hall, a similar project that also included renovation of the Dinky Dome, built in 1915 as the Minnesota Bible College but now better known for its signature glass dome skylight. The development is now fully leased, LaValle says, including a ground-floor CVS, Dinkytown's first drugstore after a decade or more without. Plans to lease space directly under the dome for commercial use didn't find any takers, LaValle says--so lucky residential tenants will enjoy the spectacular interior instead.

How do two big developments take off within two blocks when construction is stalled elsewhere? Doran credits "efficient design that works financially"--along with a "captive audience."

Source: Jim LaValle, Doran Companies
Writer: Chris Steller

It's the $27,000 question: Will people become regular bus riders if you mail them free bus passes and teach them about transit?

Seeking an answer is a neighborhood nonprofit organization with a playful name that sounds like a utility: Linden Hills Power and Light.

The name is "just a joke," says executive director Felicity Britton. It's meant to suggest empowering or enlightening the Linden Hills neighborhood on environmental issues.

The group has received one of eight grants for fighting climate change from the City of Minneapolis, a grant program now in its third year and funded by the federal Recovery Act.

Linden Hills Power and Light's idea is to promote transit ridership with a direct mail campaign to residents of the Linden Hills neighborhood in Minneapolis' far southwestern corner.

About 2,000 lucky residents will receive free Metro Transit bus passes in the mail, each with enough stored value for one round trip fare, explains Linden Hills Power and Light executive director Felicity Britton.

Metro Transit can track how many of the cards get redeemed, and which get more value added--an indication that a rider has become a regular.

Linden Hills is a bit below-average for bus-ridership, Britton says, with about 6 percent of residents riding regularly. Boosting that by 1 or 2 percent would mean 200 new regular riders.

The neighborhood is ahead of the curve in other environmental respects, including a pilot program for curbside compost pickups. (The rest of the city is set to have the service by the end of 2012.)
 
Besides buying bus passes and postage, the group plans a transit education program for the neighborhood. The effort is supported with $10,000 in federal funds plus more than $17,000 in locally raised matching funds and in-kind donations.

"We're calling it 'Taking the bus with training wheels,'" says Britton.

Source: Felicity Britton, Linden Hills Power and Light
Writer: Chris Steller

The Nice Ride Minnesota bike-share service debuted in June across a significant swath of Minneapolis: from Uptown, through downtown, to Dinkytown. But the program drew notice for two areas left out of its geographic range: St. Paul and North Minneapolis.

For North Minneapolis, that's about to change.

Last week the Minneapolis City Council approved spending $228,500 in federal Recovery Act funds to expand Nice Ride onto the city's north side. Next week, Nice Ride will hold a public meeting to gather ideas for where to put the bikes. Next summer, Nice Ride's trademark yellow-green bikes will show up at six bike-rental stations paid for with the $230,000 allocated for North Minneapolis.

St. Paul, meanwhile, waits.

"We're ready to go if we had the money," says Bill Dossett, Nice Ride's executive director.

Dossett's attention is focused for the moment on the program's reception on campuses in Nice Ride's current range, as students return for fall classes at the University of Minnesota, Augsburg College, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

He's also looking forward to next spring. If Minneapolis follows Montreal's pattern, that's when annual subscriptions will take off. Only 1,100 year passes have sold so far--a number depressed, Dossett guesses, by the misconception that annual subscriptions expire at the end of 2010.

In reality, the passes are good for a full year from day of purchase. Annual subscribers get a key and a coupon book, making them, in Dossett's estimation, "the happiest people."

Source: Bill Dossett, Nice Ride Minnesota
Writer: Chris Steller

Here's a measure of how serious Minneapolis is getting about bicycling: the city's draft Bicycle Master Plan, which is up for public comment this month, might tip you over if you tried to bike with it.

The plan, with accompanying design guidelines, runs to nearly 500 pages of text, tables, photos, and more. Its predecessor, from 2001, was a map.

The new document lays out Minneapolis' policies on bicycling and tells how city government intends to carry them out. If the city council adopts it, the master plan will be the first word--if not necessarily the last--on where biking will take Minneapolis and where Minneapolis will let biking go.

A series of five public meetings starts this week at which people can learn about the plan, express opinions and offer ideas for changes. A comment form, like the master plan itself, is available online.

Even before the meetings, members of the city's active bike community were sizing up the plan online at Minneapolis Bike Love and the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition. Resident Brendon Slotterback sees lots of city-planning documents in his job as Dakota County planner but says this seems like "a big deal." At his blog, Net Density, Slotterback made a new map to show which improvements actually have the maintenance funding needed to start construction.

Billy Binder, a member of the city's Bicycle Advisory Committee, a lifelong Northside resident, and longtime bicycling advocate, admires the master-plan effort but says the process is moving "way too fast." Guidelines showing 12-foot traffic lanes and 5-foot bike lanes are disappointing, he says, because narrower widths would let bike lanes proliferate even on skinny streets. Binder plans to comment but says he also will directly lobby council members to seek a plan worthy of what Bicycling magazine calls America's most bike-friendly city.

Sources: Billy Binder, Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee; Brendon Slotterback, Net Density
Writer: Chris Steller

A downtown block that has sat largely vacant for almost two decades--despite its location at the confluence of three major streets--may soon get back its mojo.

In the 19th century, construction on what's known as the Nicollet Hotel block, where Washington Avenue meets Hennepin and Nicollet avenues, led the way to development of the downtown Minneapolis we know today. Now hopes are high that redevelopment on the same spot, next to the new Central Library, can again lead to a revival of neighboring blocks at the north end of downtown. Mayor R.T. Rybak pitched the idea of a public park at the city-owned site during his annual budget address last week. The city's planning director, Barb Sporlein, says city staff, regional officials, and downtown leaders are in talks about a renewed effort for possible three-pronged redevelopment there, including parkland, mixed-use and transit.

A federal grant helped the city buy the block as a site for a transit hub, but two rounds of requests for proposals in 2005 and 2009 did not produce a project that's taken hold. Now excitement over devoting at least some of the land for needed downtown park space is dovetailing with prospects that the block could host a new streetcar line running from Central Avenue across the river to the Nicollet Mall downtown. Where that streetcar line would run, who would pay for park upkeep, and what sort of mixed-development could share the block are questions Sporlein says studies or another RFP may answer.

The turnaround scenario is that adjacent areas would gain energy from a revived Nicollet Hotel site, just as Gold Medal Park sparked development in downtown's Mill District. "This could be a hard-working block," says Sporlein.

Source: Barb Sporlein, City of Minneapolis
Writer: Chris Steller

Living on the water--really on the water--has been a way of life for David Nelson and his wife Renae since they moved into a houseboat on St. Paul's Mississippi riverfront almost 23 years ago. Over that time, they've shared the floating life with a few river neighbors, but now they've got plans to share its charms and challenges with many more.

Nelson, a building contractor and developer, has embarked on a renewed marketing push for a project he calls River Cities: housing 300 or more people in condos on a barge-sized boat that's specially built to ply the nation's extensive inland waterways system.

Nelson has been working on the concept for more than five years (full time for three), and figures the market for an adventurous way of living, especially for retirees, may be ripe now. "People are sick of this perpetual staycation that we're in," he says.

Plans are for two 300-by-54-foot boats, each five stories in height, that could travel together or separately. With sufficient commitments for condos ranging in price from $299,000�$499,000, Nelson could have his first condo-bearing boats built in as little as 18 months.

A big part of River Cities' appeal is the kind of proximity to nature that the Nelsons have enjoyed in St. Paul. They've also found a sense of community on St. Paul's houseboat docks (nine boats when they moved in, a city maximum of 25 now) that they hope to replicate on a bigger scale with River Cities. "Boaters look out for each other," Nelson says.

Source: David Nelson, River Cities, Inc.
Writer: Chris Steller

After nearly 30 years below ground, Walker Library in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood is getting ready to surface with a new $7 million building.

"A library that is highly visible" is the stated desire of a citizens advisory committee that issued a vision statement for a replacement structure earlier this year.

That will be a big change from the current, almost entirely subterranean library building at Hennepin and Lagoon avenues, where in lieu of a visible library at street level, person-sized steel letters spell out L-I-B-R-A-R-Y.

Envisioned is an above-ground building that announces itself as "Uptown's library, with a strong daytime and nighttime street presence." Designers don't have to look far to find an example of such a structure: the original Walker Library is still standing, just across the street.

Hennepin County's Designer Selection Committee has recommended an architect from among the 21 firms that responded to a request for proposals issued last spring, says Lois Lenroot-Ernt, capital projects manager for Hennepin County Library. The firm's name remains under wraps, however, until county commissioners act on the recommendation, perhaps this month or next.

Designer selection doesn't immediately lead to library construction in every case. A new building in north Minneapolis to replace Webber Park Library is on hold until the county acquires a site.

The county allocated more than $1 million in its 2010 budget to acquire land at a new Uptown site for the Walker library as well, but the RFP is for a $7 million structure to be built on the current site.

Source: Lois Lenroot-Ernt, Hennepin County Library
Writer: Chris Steller

Saint Paul mayor Chris Coleman hit the key notes: preparing businesses for the coming Central Corridor so they can survive the construction period and thrive once trains begin running down University Avenue.

To do that, he said, Ready for Rail has "an overall strategy" of mitigation steps, technical assistance, and financial aid to offer businesses in need.

Drawing most attention was a planned loan program to provide direct assistance to impacted businesses. Eligible borrowers would pay no interest on the loans and make no payments until after the light-rail line is complete.

Some loans or portions of loans may be forgiven; that is one of the details, along with precise eligibility criteria and which consulting organization will administer the fund, that remain to be decided. "I'd rather do it right than quick," Bell said.

The $1.5 million loan-fund pool consists of $1 million from the Met Council and $500,000 from the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative. Coleman termed it "a small safety net," emphasizing that its effectiveness would come from being part of an overall strategy.

"I'll readily concede that it's not an adequate fund, but it's a start," said Bell. He suggested--but was careful not to promise--that the size of the loan fund could grow.

How might that happen? A Met Council spokesman told The Line it's not likely that that agency would contribute more to the pool. Nancy Homans, Coleman's policy director, says some prospective local funders have already contributed via the Funders Collaborative. But she says that a higher national profile for the project could attract other funders from further afield. And if parts of the project come in under budget that could free up funds that might increase the pool.

Here is a video of the Ready for Rail news conference, prepared by Coleman's office:


Source: Nancy Homans, St. Paul Mayor's Office
Writer: Chris Steller

Most of the Central Corridor light-rail line lies in St. Paul, and that's also where most of the focus on helping small businesses survive the construction period. But several Minneapolis districts will see construction disruptions as well, says Kristin Guild, business development manager at Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED).

That's why Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak joined St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman Tuesday to announce a new "Ready for Rail" initiative meant to provide businesses along the new transit corridor in both cities with a straightforward way to get help making plans.

It's an effort of the Central Corridor Business Resources Collaborative, one of several groups working on the impact of the Central Corridor project beyond the laying of rail while the new transit line is being built. The collaborative, formed as a clearinghouse for information and assistance, is a "loose affiliation" of both cities' governments and chambers of commerce as well as a long list of community development corporations and local business associations, Guild says.

On Washington Avenue SE, crews will have to work over a long period to build a pedestrian/transit mall where cars will no longer be allowed. And readying the Washington Avenue Bridge across the Mississippi River for light-rail trains will mean relocating the on- and off-ramps that customers use to reach businesses such as Midwest Mountaineering on the West Bank.

"The key is coordination," Guild says.

For a fuller discussion of the challenges of light-rail planning, see this week's feature, All Aboard.

Source: Kristin.Guild, Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED)
Writer: Chris Steller

It's deserving of a golden spike--or maybe a golden kickstand.

Sometime in November the nation's first bicycle freeway is due to reach the Mississippi River from the west, through the difficult terrain of downtown Minneapolis. The Minneapolis City Council voted July 2 to fund completion of Phase III of the Cedar Lake Trail, at a reported cost of at least $9.2 million for a single mile. Work begins this month.

Rather than do battle with motor vehicles on surface roads, bicyclists will be able to follow the final leg of the trail along a semi-subterranean path. They'll travel in a railroad trench, alongside tracks carrying freight and commuter trains, from downtown's near-north outskirts through the Warehouse District to West River Parkway.

If other sections of the Cedar Lake Trail look something like an interstate freeway cutting across wild, open land, Phase III will have the feel of an inner-city freeway slicing through the urban core, Renderings by engineering firm URS show a paved bike roadway running next to sheer embankment walls and under long sections of elevated highway, all the while enclosed by chain link fence. (See PDF.)

At the trail's new end, riders will emerge into more bucolic surroundings, descending a ramp through the Federal Reserve Bank's private wildflower garden to the serpentine river road, just upstream from the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

As a trailhead for commuters planning to pedal westward home, the new east entrance will be much easier to find than the trail's current starting point beneath the Royalston Avenue overpass.

Don Pflaum, city transportation planner, says other access points in the new section will be at Washington Avenue and Target Field.

Source: Don Pflaum
Writer: Chris Steller

A high-speed train route to Chicago is coming, politicians and transit planners say. But a route to New Orleans already exists and you choose the speed--the Mississippi River Trail is built for bicyclists.

The MRT traces the Mississippi's full length, from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, following local roads (mostly) and dedicated bike paths (where possible). It's been around since the 1990s but has stayed under most people's radar in large part due to a lack of signage.

That began to change last year in Minnesota, as the state Department of Transportation started putting up signs along one side or in some places both sides of the river.

Not every part of the river has roads on both sides, but Minneapolis and St. Paul are already bicycle-friendly on both the east and west banks.

MRT signs now dot Mississippi River Boulevard in St. Paul, but Minneapolis has lagged because of local concerns about marking too many trails. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board's Grand Rounds Parkway is nearing completion and has its own signs, including ones along the river. But MRT, Inc. board member Suzanne Pepin says she expects that MRT signs will be added soon, allowing Minneapolis to visibly join the 10-state route.

Minnesota is taking the lead among the 10 states along the route with a state Department of Transportation program pushing acceptance, awareness, and enjoyment of the MRT, Pepin says. "This is the right time for the trail to take off," says Pepin, who predicts the MRT will become "one of the most incredible international tourist attractions."

Source: Suzanne Pepin, Mississippi River Trail, Inc.
Writer: Chris Steller

Work is underway on building the Central Corridor light-rail transit line between Minneapolis and St. Paul. So how soon will construction start on the anticipated wave of transit-related development projects along the University Avenue route?

At the northwest corner of University and Hampden Avenue in St. Paul, the answer is: It's done. The Lyric at Carleton Place, a 170-unit apartment building, has seemed ahead of the curve, rising even as the lingering recession has kept other projects on the drawing boards.

The Lyric is a rental companion to the Carleton Artist Lofts, a renovated condominium building next door, both developed by Johnson Brothers Liquor Company, a major local distributor of wines and spirits. (Johnny's Lounge, a bar that formerly occupied the site, is commemorated inside the Lyric with a namesake gathering space.)

Yet the coming Central Corridor LRT line is not the main selling point for The Lyric, which is located between future stations at Raymond and Fairview avenues. Instead, The Lyric boasts artist-friendly amenities like a gallery, an amphitheater, and an outdoor movie-screening space.

The developer's effort to build a community at the Lyric extends beyond physical features. "The company has gone out of its way to incorporate social media" such as a Lyric-specific social-media site and an iTunes channel, says Christopher Lower of Sterling Cross Group, a public relations, marketing and web design firm working with property management company Dominium.

Lower says there's movement afoot to re-brand the Lyric's South St. Anthony neighborhood as "Mid-City" -- appropriate, considering the skyline view in either direction from the Lyric's rooftop deck.

Source: Christopher Lower, Sterling Cross Group
Writer: Chris Steller

"Brick House" was the nickname for Memorial Stadium, the predecessor at the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus to TCF Bank Stadium, the new home of the Golden Gophers football team.

Now an actual house near the stadium--wooden, not brick--has been renovated by the University District Alliance, a community organization formed in the stadium's wake to strengthen ties between the university and surrounding neighborhoods. It's the first of three houses located in target areas near the new stadium to hit the real estate market after purchase and renovation by the Alliance.

When Minnesota legislators approved state funds for construction of TCF Bank Stadium, they were also motivated to mitigate negative impacts of the mammoth campus on adjacent residential areas. A special aim was encouraging home ownership in neighborhoods where the pace of conversion from family to student rental housing has accelerated in recent years.

The Alliance--made up of resident associations in three neighborhoods of Southeast Minneapolis, the university, and the City of Minneapolis--decided that renovating houses for sale to new resident-owners was the best way of spending the bulk of $750,000 the state allocated to demonstrate how local projects could keep campus-area neighborhoods stable and sustainable.

"Initially there was the hope to at least break even, but that's not going to happen," says James De Sota, Southeast Como Improvement Association coordinator, whose group pushed the Alliance to use green building materials and methods in the renovation work.  Still, he says, efforts at cooperation by local groups, the university and city government are off to a "nice start."

Source: James De Sota, Southeast Como Improvement Association
Writer: Chris Steller