Downtown : Development News

Numerous solar-powered pay machines that resemble ATM's are cropping up in and around downtown Minneapolis.

Throughout several phases, the city is installing a slick 'smart' parking meter system much like those in bigger cities such as Chicago or Los Angeles, according to city information. They're replacing the old meters, which are getting too old to use.  

The multi-space parking meters, which link to the city's wireless network, can accept credit cards, not just coins.   

So far, 46 pay stations that relate to about 430 spaces have gone into the North Loop area. A couple have also been placed near the Minneapolis Convention Center. Another 400 will follow in 2011 and 2012.

Ultimately, they'll cover about 4,500 of 6,800 metered spaces throughout the city, according to city traffic engineer Tim Drew. 

People will pay for numbered spots at any nearby multi-space meter, which will usually be located mid-block. The arrangement will come in especially handy when someone needs to add money from a distance or if a machine breaks down, he says.

The new machines track meter time, which can also be checked from any pay station. Parking time limits will be the same as before. "It tells you when you need to be back," he says, adding that with step-by-step prompts, the machines are self-explanatory. 

Further, the new pay stations will reject money during restricted times. For instance, in the tow-away zones, "It tells you it's rush hour," he says, adding that it won't take payment. As a result, he says, "It's much harder to get towed."  
The new meters also streamline the city's collection process. First, money from the meters will be retrieved monthly instead of weekly. The machines will report wirelessly when vaults are full, which is likely to be less often because of the credit card option.

Overall the $6.6 million project will be paid within three years by the revenue it generates, Drew says.
 

Source: Tim Drew, Minneapolis Public Works
Writer: Anna Pratt

After years of wear-and-tear, some city planners say that Peavey Plaza, a downtown Minneapolis amphitheater and fountain on Nicollet Mall, could use some sprucing up.
 
Although it's a popular spot for outdoor concerts and other public gatherings, some areas are "depressed and hidden from view," says Chuck Lutz, who is the deputy director of the city's community planning and economic development office.
 
A couple years ago, the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota named the plaza an endangered historic site.
 
M. Paul Friedberg, a prominent New York landscape architect, designed the 1975 plaza, which is defined by lots of concrete, hard lines and multiple levels. Friedberg also did the nearby Loring Greenway, a similarly-styled urban walkway. 
 
The fountain's mechanical system is failing, while the bronze-colored pumps and pipes are visibly distressed. "It's not looking so good," says Lutz, adding that its condition has even raised public safety concerns.
 
When Orchestra Hall announced in 2009 that it was embarking on a $40 million expansion and renovation of its adjacent concert hall, the city saw an opportunity to team up, Lutz says.Last year, the state legislature approved $16 million for both projects, with $2 million going to the plaza. The city still needs several more million dollars to pull it off, according to Lutz.
 
Right now, the city is soliciting ideas for the makeover from four finalist architects, including Close Landscape Architecture, Coen & Partners, Damon Farber Associates, and Oslund and Associates. The public is invited to sit in on interviews with the architects on Nov. 16 at the convention center. 
 
How much of the original design should be preserved is debatable. At this early stage, Lutz says, "We're not asking developers to come with designs already," Lutz says. "It's an opportunity to hear from the four competing firms."
 
 Source: Chuck Lutz, deputy director, Minneapolis community planning and economic development department 
Writer: Anna Pratt

They're easy to spot in their bright lime-green uniforms. "Ambassadors" are on hand to answer questions and clean up graffiti and trash, among the many other things they do in downtown Minneapolis.  

The Ambassadors collectively cover 125 blocks for the Downtown Improvement District (DID). DID is a public-private partnership that the local business community started in 2009 to keep the downtown area safe, clean, and green.

District COO Sarah Harris made the case for the DID model during a talk she gave on Nov. 5 at the Urban Land Institute.

DID, she told The Line, is one of several "business improvement districts" (BIDs) throughout the city, which help fund improvements within certain boundaries. Its mission is to "make downtown a thriving and competitive environment for recruiting and retaining businesses, employees, residents, and visitors," its website states.

Or, as Harris puts it more simply, "We are the concierge for downtown."

With over 1,000 districts nationwide to learn from, she says, "We took the best practices from several other districts and pieced them together based on what would work best in our community."    

Already, it's getting results, statistics show: Working with police, Ambassadors, who are keyed into the zone's radios and cameras, have helped dramatically decrease problems with chronic offenders. And their first-aid training has helped save lives--21 since Sept. 30 of this year, by DID's count.  

The Ambassador program is just one of many services the DID provides, including landscaping, snow removal, repair work, and more.

Thanks in part to their efforts, a recent DID survey found, downtowners' perceptions of their environment have greatly improved. "People said the area seemed friendlier, cleaner and safer," she says, adding that she gets numerous emails daily encouraging the DID to keep up the good work.

Source: Sarah Harris, COO, Downtown Improvement District
Writer: Anna Pratt

The rooftop of the Minneapolis Convention Center is on its way to housing the largest solar photovoltaic system in the Upper Midwest--despite a series of low domes where solar panels won't be installed.

Work is underway on the flat portions of the convention center roof that will carry 2,613 panels. Last month the city issued a progress report as the effort was about a sixth of the way to completion.

One-sixth is also the proportion of the rooftop area that can support the solar installation, including flat and other areas over non-rentable space, according to information provided by Project Manager Brian Millberg and Chris Larson, facility director at the convention center.

Had the convention center been designed to gather solar energy in the first place, the roof would likely generate more power than the facility could use--raising issues about how to handle the surplus. As built, the system will generate 750,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year, all used on site. That would be enough power for 85 homes, and it means 529 fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere--the same amount as 60,587 gallons of gas would produce.

Newer facilities can go green more easily by building that way in the first place, but federal and other funds mean Minneapolis won't need to provide capital for the project. "The solar array is not meant to be a cost-saving project but a cost-neutral project that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels," said Jeff Johnson, the center's executive director. 

What's next for solar in the Twin Cities? State funding will pay for solar installations  along the Central Corridor light-rail route, including Fire Stations No. 1 and 19 in Minneapolis, according to Gayle Prest, the city's sustainability manager. "It's a great opportunity to showcase [solar]," she said.

Sources: Brian Millberg and Gayle Prest, City of Minneapolis; Chris Larson and Jeff Johnson, Minneapolis Convention Center
Writer: Chris Steller

There's no getting around it: far northern Minnesota struggles through long winters. That's something architects and others in the construction industry can relate to, as they try to survive the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

One Minneapolis firm has kept the lights on during the recession by doing high-quality design work for a demanding client--the federal government.

Julie Snow Architects' new U.S. Land Port of Entry opened for business recently in Warroad, Minn. The firm has developed a relationship with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency with a Design Excellence Program that puts architects' plans to the test through an unusual series of peer reviews.

"It's like being back in school," says Matt Kreilich, design principal at Julie Snow Architects.

Julie Snow Architects has designed a U.S. Port of Entry in northern Maine. Another GSA project is the U.S. federal office building at Third and Washington avenues South in downtown Minneapolis, where the firm is one of several contracted to plan renovation work.

The Warroad project has already won a couple of prizes, including a GSA design-excellence honor and a regional WoodWorks award for use of wood in an institutional structure.

The design's strong horizontals pick up the dominant lines of the region's flat landscape. Cedar cladding covers three buildings that are linked by covered walkways. The wood has a black stain on surfaces that are visible from afar for contrast in the snowy environment. But the walls that people are in close contact with carry a clear finish that gives the structures a warm glow, Kreilich says.

An early inspiration for the design was the truck traffic that moves through the facility, bearing loads of cut wood, light colored but with dark brown bark.

The building was designed to meet LEED Silver certification and the firm may go for Gold. Interior furnishings like benches and the reception desk are made with scraps of cedar left over from the exterior.

The design is meant to "add warmth in a cold climate," Krelich says. "Climate is such an important factor to designing buildings in Minnesota. The weather is extreme, severe and constantly changing."

Source: Matt Kreilich, Julie Snow Architects Inc.
Writer: Chris Steller

Steering a kayak through a whitewater rapids within a stone's throw of downtown Minneapolis has been a longtime dream of local paddling enthusiasts.

The idea has been to take advantage of some of the Mississippi River's approximately 50-foot drop at St. Anthony Falls along the river's east bank. A manmade course of restored rapids could be controlled, according to plans, so as to provide the right flow for a range of recreational users, from leisurely rafters to competitive racers.

The concept has received both state and federal support over the last decade or more. Now a redesign of the project by consultants for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is underway, with a draft report due this fall.

Designers are considering a continuous, looping course--using a conveyor to return paddlers back to the beginning --as an alternative to a linear course with start and finish far apart. They are also taking into account changed conditions on the ground like the new piers of the replaced I-35W bridge.

At a progress meeting last week, an expert on whitewater courses presented encouraging numbers: restored rapids in Minneapolis could attract 62,000 people annually. Even the least lucrative of four business models shows that most costs of operation could be recovered. (Construction costs are another matter.)

Project Manager Russel K. Snyder calls the course that the Mississippi River whitewater park concept is taking through the federal system "unusual." But like the whitewater rapids it would restore, the project keeps moving, stirring passions and possibilities.

Source: Russel K. Snyder, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
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

When Christopher and Rushika Hage moved back to Minnesota in 2007, they saw that on the sizable shelf of local-history books devoted to individual Twin Cities neighborhoods, one notable neighborhood was missing: Minneapolis' Nicollet Island.

The Hages have since filled that gap, twice over. Their "Nicollet Island" installment in Arcadia Publishing's "Images of America" photo-book series appeared earlier this year. And in July local publisher Nodin Press released their second book on the subject, "Nicollet Island: History and Architecture."

It's an in-depth survey that takes readers from the time when Dakota people made the island a birthing place, through its Gilded Age heyday as home to the city's early elites, to its current status as a showcase park on Minneapolis' downtown riverfront.

Rushika Hage calls the tale "a history of Minneapolis in miniature." Nicollet Island lies upstream of St. Anthony Falls--the only true waterfall on the Mississippi River and the reason Minneapolis came into being as a city.

After voters in the 1860s rejected a chance to buy the island as a central park, its 40 acres developed along the same pattern as the city as a whole: water power-based factories nearest the falls, then tiny zones of commerce, high-end townhouses, mansions, and residences for the middle and working classes.

The Hages devote a chapter to the island's residential and industrial architecture--a 19th-century time capsule, preserved thanks to countercultural residents who fought off bulldozers in the 1970s.

A special find is a boyhood photo of Franklin Griswold, an inventor of railroad and traffic signals used the world over who grew up on the island, riding a homemade four-wheeled cycle.

Sources: Christopher and Rushika Hage
Writer: Chris Steller (who lives on the island and gave some information to the Hages for their books)

A design has been drawn up for a memorial to the 13 people who died three years ago when the Interstate 35W bridge fell into the Mississippi River, but site selection for the project is still up in the air.

Recent weeks have seen the likely spot for the memorial shift from Gold Medal Park, next to the new Guthrie Theater, to park property across West River Parkway that's actually owned by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

"People are ready to see the memorial," says mayoral spokesman John Stiles, adding that three years after the tragedy is "a decent time" for plans to proceed.

In the days after the bridge fell, the then-newly built artificial hill at Gold Medal Park drew crowds seeking a spot from which to survey the scene of the disaster--to mourn, to witness or simply to pay respects. Tom Oslund, the park's landscape designer, also designed the memorial.

But Gold Medal Park is not a real city park. Instead it's property belonging partly to the city and partly to the Guthrie, leased for 10 years to the William W. McGuire and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation for operation as a park.  

That means that in 2017 Gold Medal Park could become something else. So city officials have been looking at an alternative location across the street that could accommodate a somewhat downsized version of the memorial.

Park board president John Erwin says by removing "weed trees" and relocating planted crab apple trees, the new site could offer a similar view of the bridge site for the memorial--"in perpetuity."

But Gold Medal Park isn't completely out of the picture yet. "Nothing's off the table," says Stiles.

Source: John Stiles, City of Minneapolis; John Erwin, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
Writer: Chris Steller

The Minneapolis Riverfront Corporation, the state-chartered organization that's still in its early years of steering development along the city's Mississippi riverfront, has taken charge of an effort that's nearly 20 years old: restoring the East Channel Falls near downtown. Two local agencies have appropriated a total of $160,000 toward studying how feasible and workable the idea is.

The city started as a milling center at St. Anthony Falls, the only real waterfall along the entire length of the Mississippi River. But at the time of the city's founding in the mid-19th century, the main waterfall was divided into two parts: the main channel falls, between the west bank of the river on the downtown side and Hennepin Island; and the East Channel Falls, between Hennepin Island and the river's east bank.

Both sections of falls were once remarked upon for their natural beauty: water playing off huge chunks of broken limestone. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tamed the main falls with a ramp-like apron covering. And the East Channel Falls disappeared, tapped first for direct-drive and then hydroelectric power.

In the early 1990s, David Wiggins began exploring the idea of restoring the east channel falls while working as a program manager for the Minnesota Historical Society. Now with the National Park Service's Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), Wiggins says a coalition of interested parties has formed to move the concept forward.

"I'm pretty optimistic," Wiggins says. "But it's not necessarily a slam dunk." Engineers are using $100,000 from the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO) to study whether restoring the falls is feasible. Another $60,000 from the St. Anthony Falls Heritage Board is going toward master-planning and consultation with Dakota elders about the area's history before white settlement.

Source: David Wiggins, National Park Service
Writer: Chris Steller

A court ruling blocking a proposed development last week has put the fate of a key site in the renaissance at Minneapolis' downtown riverfront back in the hands of the Minneapolis park board.

Members of an ad hoc group have been working toward this moment, studying the past and considering the future of the original Fuji-Ya restaurant property. A meeting between the 30-member unofficial committee and park officials is set for July 23.

To say the late restaurateur Reiko Weston was ahead of her time in 1963 when she built the Fuji-Ya on the foundation of an old mill next to St. Anthony Falls is an understatement. People considered pioneers of riverfront redevelopment were latecomers by comparison, getting projects going a decade or two later. Weston actually bought the property even earlier, in 1958, says Rhys MacPherson, an architect at MS&R and a member of the ad hoc group. He has assembled a timeline showing how the site has been used since 1870. "It has been a process of continuous change," he says.

Now a narrow wedge of sloping riverbank between First Street and W. River Parkway, the site appears to contain little beyond the spare white walls of the former Fuji-Ya above a 19th-century limestone base. But below ground, says MacPherson, are four stories of fascinating mill infrastructure--some of it collapsed due to disrepair on the Fuji Ya's roof.

Weston sited her restaurant well, MacPherson says: You can hear the roar of the falls and gaze at bridge upon bridge, up and down the river.

Source: Rhys MacPherson
Writer: Chris Steller

People whose mouths began watering this spring, when they heard the word that street food is finally coming to downtown Minneapolis, may want to grab a granola bar to tide them over.

The first batch of applications for food-cart licenses share two problems. First, the food-service vehicles being proposed are heavier than city staff anticipated and could damage downtown sidewalks. And the prospect of setting up and taking down big vehicles at requested high-traffic sites is presenting unforeseen logistical challenges.

Some of the more recent applicants asked for smaller carts, says Ricardo Cervantes, the city's deputy director for licensing, and they'll probably be able to start serving food this summer.

City staff are looking for alternatives that will work for bigger vehicles, including finding second-choice sites. "We've got to be creative," Cervantes says. One idea: an apparatus lighter than a truck to move cart trailers into place.

Some food vendors may be able to operate out of private surface parking lots, where they could also have the option of using the property owner's power supply. (Food carts on public right-of-ways must be able to provide their own power.)

A rough winter of freeze-thaw cycles has loosened granite sidewalk pavers on the Nicollet Mall, a prime food-cart site, making them more susceptible to damage from heavy loads.

Tony Perella, general manager at Hell's Kitchen, contacted by email on an overseas trip, says his restaurant's plans for a food cart (reportedly to be called Hell on Wheels) will probably be pushed back to 2011.

Sources: Ricardo Cervantes, City of Minneapolis; Tony Perella, Hell's Kitchen
Writer: Chris Steller

An effort to buy the stones that once made up Minneapolis' tallest--and, many say, finest--19th-century building continues to build steam.

Recovering and re-using the massive remnants of the legendary Metropolitan Building is suddenly a cause celebre among preservationists. The campaign promises partial redemption for the building's now-lamented destruction a half-century ago, at the nadir of an urban renewal era that devastated the city's most historic section.

Granite blocks from the majestic 1890 structure sit in a huge pile in rural Delano, where waiting to be crushed for road projects. "Most of them are the size of a large car," says Jack Byers, Minneapolis planning supervisor. He says stones with delicate carvings appear to have been placed in the middle of the jetty-like pile, possibly to protect them from the elements.

Byers is working with Preservation Minnesota, Preserve Minneapolis, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Hennepin History Museum to find preservation funds, then a function, for the pieces of architect E. Townsend Mix's masterpiece.

Dean Phillips, creator of the "Bring the Metropolitan Back to Minneapolis" Facebook page, is eager to meet both challenges. He thinks the blocks would make a great a downtown urban ruins park.

"I'm a passionate fan of architecture, and Minneapolis architecture specifically," says Phillips, whose family's Phillips Distilling Company and Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation are in historic buildings in the Old St. Anthony district of Minneapolis. "I'm a sucker for a great story and a good puzzle. This has both of those."

Sources: Jack Byers, City of Minneapolis; Dean Phillips, Phillips Distilling Company and Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation
Writer: Chris Steller

The Onion once ran a story about a Minneapolis architect's design for a house in which every room was a foyer. Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis has had the opposite problem since its construction: not enough lobby space.

When it was built in 1974, funds were lavished on an acoustically excellent performance space but a more miserly approach was taken toward the public lobby and backstage areas.

The performance hall can hold 2,450 people but the lobby is meant to hold only 800. That leaves packed patrons with a choice at intermission, according to orchestra spokesperson Gwen Pappas: "Either to go to the restroom or to get a beverage. In 20 minutes, you certainly couldn't do both."

A design by KPMB Architects of Toronto was unveiled last month for a $38 million renovation to correct the imbalance, to be completed by 2013.

The square footage of lobby space afforded each patron will double. People in wheelchairs will come and go more easily; currently stairs are scattered throughout the lobby, remnants of the era before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

KPMB plans to raise the entire main lobby floor, now sunken, to street level, improving people-watching both into and out of the hall. New windows will also provide wider city views now blocked by huge blue tubes along the 11th Street exterior.

The biggest opportunity for intermission elbow-room comes with a lobby bump-out onto orchestra-owned land adjoining the Peavey Plaza public park, where sliding panels will encourage mingling among patrons and parkgoers, Pappas says.

Source: Gwen Pappas, Minnesota Orchestra
Writer: Chris Steller