Development News

People who design streets are taking the coming of the Central Corridor light-rail transit line linking Minneapolis and St. Paul as an opportunity to revisit an intersection that has bedeviled traffic engineers for decades.

The Central Corridor route is a mile away from the complicated five-way crossroads of East River Parkway, Franklin Avenue, and 27th Avenue SE, but its impact is expected to be felt there. In preparation for the train following Washington Avenue SE through the university campus, that street will be closed to motor vehicles to create a pedestrian/transit mall.

East River Parkway may get much of the motor-vehicle traffic redirected from Washington Avenue, bringing those drivers to the intricate intersection.

Runners, walkers, bicyclists and traffic from the nearby University of Minnesota converge there. Balancing their competing needs has meant a series of shifts and tweaks over the years.

The reconstruction now underway is bringing improvements that include the latest in road-sharing techniques and technology, from "bike boxes" where cyclists can wait for green lights in front of other vehicles, to signal sensors that detect bikers and pedestrians as well as cars.

If those innovations work at East River Parkway, they may see action at other traffic trouble spots. "Why do I get all these odd intersections?" asks Hennepin County Transportation director Jim Grube. "I must have been born under a bad sign, as Eric Clapton would say."

Source: Jim Grube, Hennepin County
Writer: Chris Steller

The movement to establish off-leash dog parks has been making inroads across the Twin Cities -- even in areas that don't offer up the kind of out-of-the-way nooks and crannies that are most readily repurposed for dogs and their owners to roam unattached.

The latest proposed site for an off-leash park is in the heart of south Minneapolis, miles from existing dog runs. But the idea of building such a facility in a park named for Martin Luther King, Jr. has stirred protest. Still, the president of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board says he thinks an accommodation can be found.

It's a big park, John Erwin points out, and people in the Kingfield and adjacent neighborhood have dogs that need exercise just as much as their counterparts in areas closer to the city's center or its outskirts.

A decade or so ago, the goal of setting up areas for dogs to run off-leash anywhere in the parks of Minneapolis and St. Paul was a cause that required energetic, organized advocates explaining the need and the benefits to a sometimes skeptical public.

Minneapolis now has four outlying off-leash dog parks--one each in Northeast, along the Mississippi River, at Minnehaha Creek and near Lake of the Isles--as well as three more around downtown, established through the efforts of the Dog Grounds nonprofit organization.

St. Paul has one official off-leash dog park at Arlington and Arkwright streets, but a city task force has been looking into the possibility of creating parks at other sites as well.

Source: John Erwin, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
Writer: Chris Steller

If Ford Motor Co. decommissions its St. Paul plant as planned in the fall of 2011, the city will be ready with ideas for creating public open-space parkland on some of the 125-acre site. And not only by expanding room for sports, like the baseball diamond that Ford has provided for decades.

"The site borders one of the great rivers of the world," says Whitney Clark, executive director at Friends of the Mississippi River, a local advocacy group. Clark would like to see Ford's 22 acres of riverbank land join adjacent Hidden Falls Regional Park, with more of Ford's land along the blufftop becoming open space--if that works with redevelopment of the site.

Clark is part of a 12-member Ford Site Open Space Workgroup convened by City Council member Pat Harris this summer. (A separate task force is tackling how how mixed-use development might make use of the plant property.) The work group will study feasibility and scout out sources for creating open space, such as regional parks and state Legacy funds.

A river dam that used to provide hydropower to the plant now belongs to a private operator, but that shouldn't complicate public use of Ford's riverbank parcel, Clark says--in fact, people already fish there. "The elephant in the living room," says Clark, is the toxic waste--barrels of it--dumped there through the 1960s. He's hoping Ford, which has Superfund liability, will excavate soon, rather than after the barrels start leaking.

Density on the remainder of the site, likely fitting the retail-residential pattern of the neighborhood, is fine by Clark; unless it's highrise, it doesn't impact the river. Neighbors have legitimate concerns about congestion, he says. Planning could alleviate that, as could the open spaces the work group is seeking to create.

Source: Whitney Clark, Friends of the Mississippi River
Writer: Chris Steller

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

Green roofs have special appeal on buildings in northern climates. They can insulate against extreme temperatures, conserving warmth in the winter and reflecting the sun's hot rays in the summer, in addition to limiting water runoff.

But most of what's known about designing modern green roofs comes from Germany, Toronto, and Chicago--places not as, let's say, rich in climatological variety as the Twin Cities.

With the wrong plants for this climate, well-intentioned and otherwise well-designed green roofs fail. So University of Minnesota horticulture professor John Erwin and graduate student Jonathan Hensley set out two and a half years ago to study which plants were best to plant on top of buildings.

They tested 88 plants on the roof of Williamson Hall, a university building that is mostly underground. But it wasn't ease of access that led them to choose a test site with a roof at ground level, says Erwin. The plants actually have a tougher time of it there, where the air is warmer and moves less.

Their focus was on "extensive" green roofs--those where plants grow in shallow tray systems that are light enough to retrofit. It's a matter of supply and demand: "Most roofs are already built," Erwin says. ("Intensive" green roofs use deeper soil that can need the support of structures such as underground parking ramps.)

The findings: forty-four plants, half of those tested, will work in Minnesota. Hensley's thesis containing the list will be made public this fall. That will help building owners inspired by examples at Target Center, Minneapolis City Hall, and Mystic Lake Casino have more success with green roofs of their own.

Source: John Erwin, University of Minnesota
Writer: Chris Steller

It's a good thing the board members of the American Craft Council made sure the Twin Cities had a deep talent pool before they chose to relocate the group's headquarters from New York City to Minneapolis.

Because not one of the ACC's staff members in NYC made the move.

For a variety of reasons, according to spokeswoman Bernadette Boyle, all 20�25 stayed East, including Boyle. Speaking by phone from New York on Monday, the day the Minneapolis office opened for business, she said the transition feels "bittersweet."

She has heard good things about the historic Grain Belt Brewery building, where the ACC is leasing space from RSP Architects, the firm that renovated the castle-like structure for its own headquarters.

The Twin Cities were familiar to people at ACC because of the craft show the organization holds annually in St. Paul, one of four such shows in cities across the country. (Another of those cities, Atlanta, was under consideration for the new headquarters site.)

So they knew that the Twin Cities are a "cultural hotbed for crafts," Boyle said, with great museums and simply a great place to live.

The organization had to move. New York simply wasn't economically viable for the ACC anymore, Boyle said.

Some staffers, like Boyle, are continuing with ACC for a few weeks or months, and the show staff will stay on, working remotely. About 15 people will staff the new office, she said.

One feature of the SoHo office still due to make the move to Minneapolis is the organization's 7,000-volume library, which Boyle said is open to the public, by appointment.

Source: Bernadette Boyle, American Craft Council
Writer: Chris Steller

From the ashes of the Arise! Bookstore, which closed up shop in May, will soon rise Boneshaker Books, in the same spot on Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis. Boneshaker, a collective, bought the one-story building from the Arise! collective to continue an outpost of progressive publications there. But the seven-member Boneshaker crew--including some veteran members and volunteers with Arise!--also wanted to make a clean start. That meant a summer (or more) of renovations to the approximately 1,500-square-foot space.

To cover costs in the interim, Boneshaker Books is leasing the space to Storefront in a Box, an organization which in turn is offering rentals by the week to anyone with a good idea for using it--from a weeklong "Nerd Party" to a rummage-sale fundraiser for a one-woman theater production. The Women's Prison Project, which distributes books behind bars, will maintain its small space in the building. Meanwhile, Boneshaker is holding its own events at a variety of off-premise locations, including Washburn Fair Oaks Park and the Triple Rock Social Club.

Boneshaker Books' name derives from an early name for bicycles, though collective member Tom Schumacher says the association has grown diffuse and the name is now an "empty signifier" open to interpretation. The collective is calling its group of donors of $250 or more the "Skeleton Crew"--each of whom can choose a book that will stay in stock in perpetuity.

Schumacher concedes that opening a new independent bookstore is "somewhat quixotic." But he says the collective is counting on support for its niche market (progressive politics, defined more broadly than by its predecessor) as well as a solid base of support from the the neighborhood (Whittier, and across the street Lowry Hill East).

Source: Tom Schumacher, Boneshaker Books
Writer: Chris Steller

When a couple living in Powderhorn Park moved out of the neighborhood this month, they hung wooden signs with stenciled blackbirds along the way to their new home, many blocks north. And a photographer from the Powderhorn 365 project was there to document the endearing demarcations of their departure.

Every day since Jan. 1, 2009, someone in Powderhorn has posted a photo from the neighborhood on the Powderhorn 365 website. It's a fascinating catalog of life in this diverse south Minneapolis enclave of artists, activists and everyday people.

"I wanted to show people our neighborhood," says resident Amy Wurdock, who dreamed up the project in late 2008 when she got a digital SLR camera. Her motivation: to replace the occasionally heard refrain of "God, this place sucks" with "How cool is this?" Wurdock calls Minneapolis-based photographer Wing Young Huie--known for his epic documentation of urban streets and neighborhoods--"my main inspiration."

But the prospect of posting a photo a day was too daunting for a mother of two young children, so Wurdock looked for six others who, with her, could each take a day of the week, all year long. The result is not only online but in an impressive coffee table book collecting the team's photos from 2009, made possible through the efforts of Leonie Thomas, an intern from the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA). One resident sent the book to friends in Germany and Australia to persuade them to visit him, Wurdock says. (A 2010 book is possible--if another organization or foundation shows interest in contributing.)

Now the project is continuing with a new crop of seven photographers, augmented by occasional guests filling in. One of the only rules is that photos must come from within the neighborhood's boundaries--although the 2009 book includes a couple that violate that rule. No one has guessed which, says Wurdock.

Source: Amy Wurdock, Powderhorn 365
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

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

All seems as it should be in front of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History. Bronze wolves stalk a bronze moose on the path to the front door, and above the door, an immense American bison is carved in relief on the limestone facade, along with the museum's name.

But behind that facade, the 70-year-old building on the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus is suffering from old age, according to museum spokesman Martin Moen. Gallery ceilings lower than the current industry standard make installation of many traveling exhibits difficult or impossible. The space for such exhibits is only 3,000 square feet, a bare minimum. Air conditioning in the 1960s-era addition is on its last legs;  the original 1940 building has none.

A solution--constructing a new building for the museum on the university's St. Paul campus--has been in the works for nearly 15 years. Fundraising for the $39.5 million building began in 2001. Some of the $10 million raised so far went toward design work and construction drawing for a new facility at the southwest corner of Larpenteur and Cleveland avenues.

But state funding for the shovel-ready project has twice fallen victim to Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto pen, and last year the university decided to give the proposal a breather. The Board of Regents will decide this year whether to include the Bell again in the university's funding request next legislative session.

In the meantime, the state's only natural history museum continues drawing 60,000 visitors per year. On exhibit this summer are works by Francis Jacques, the Aitken, Minn.-born artist who painted dioramas for the Bell and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Part of the cost of the St. Paul museum will be the careful removal of some of Jacques' murals for re-installation in the new space.

Source: Martin Moen, Bell Museum
Writer: Chris Steller

An annual arts crawl reaches the age of maturity at its fifth year. At least that's how Dudley Voight sees the FLOW Northside Arts Crawl, which at the ripe old age of five will once again enliven West Broadway in Minneapolis this Saturday.

"At the fifth year, you can ask different questions," Voight says. "We're not going away. What are our goals? That's really pretty fun."

FLOW is not standard gallery-crawl fare, although Voight says her inspiration for it came from the regular jubilance of monthly crawls in the Warehouse District in years past, when that downtown slice of North Minneapolis teemed with visual arts venues.

Businesses that aren't art galleries play a big role in FLOW, hosting art shows and performances. A highlight this year is Catalyst Community Partners' newly renovated 5 Points Building at Penn and Broadway, now home to KMOJ-FM Radio ("The People's Station"), which will host three floors of exhibits and arts activities.

Familiarity breeds interest in art, says Voight. One measure of FLOW's impact is that businesses on Broadway now routinely have art on their walls throughout the rest of the year.

"It's an invitation to people to come into our community, into our space," she says, and the art they'll see is a sample of what the community has on offer. "All the things that happen at FLOW happen all year round in north Minneapolis."

Source: Dudley Voight, FLOW Northside Arts Crawl
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

When the National Brotherhood of Cyclists finally held a long-discussed "summit" of African-American bicycling groups from around the country, they chose to come to the Twin Cities. And while here last weekend, they held the Twin Cities Urban Bicycle Festival, believed to be the nation's first African-American-themed bike fest, as part of St. Paul's Rondo Days.

The Brotherhood is the national organization of Major Taylor bicycle clubs--named for the 19th century Indiana man who was cycling's first African-American world champion. The bike summit drew cyclists from Major Taylor clubs in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Nashville, Oakland, and Columbus, Ohio, according to Louis Moore of Minneapolis, president of the Major Taylor Bicycling Club of Minnesota.

All knew that Bicycling magazine had recently named Minneapolis the country's best bike city, Moore says. And most had heard of the Midtown Greenway bicycle and pedestrian route that crosses Minneapolis. On a 40-mile group ride starting in St. Paul, the Greenway's Martin Olav Sabo Bridge was one of the highlights--particularly for Moore, who was an aide in former U.S. Rep. Sabo's district office for 20 years.

"I was his bicycle man," says Moore of his years pushing bike projects for Sabo's Minneapolis district. "I taught him how to sit on a bike." (Growing up on a farm didn't leave Sabo time for biking, Moore explains.)

Are the Twin Cities' predominantly African-American neighborhoods underserved by bike facilities? Yes, says Moore. North Minneapolis, for example, has few bike routes, with more planned but not funded. Moore says that's due to the work of vocal advocates from other parts of town, adding that the North Side is slated to get a bike/walk center, funded in part with federal dollars, within two years.

Source: Louis Moore, Major Taylor Bicycling Club of Minnesota
Writer: Chris Steller

Psycho Suzi's, a popular, tiki-themed "motor lounge" in northeast Minneapolis, will move six blocks down Marshall Street to a 15,000-square foot space that used to house Gabby's, a riverfront saloon in a swirl of controversy until its recent closing.

Leslie Bock, Psycho Suzi's' owner, says she was moved to buy the expansive, 1.5-acre property because it allows more elbow room and the Mississippi River frontage holds strong appeal.

"I think tons of people are drawn to waterfront dining/drinking and we're all hoping we don't screw it up,"  Bock says via email. "The space and location will truly allow us to be all we can be. We need space to be creative and artsy, and obviously Northeast Minneapolis is that place."

The building will allow Bock to triple the 80-seat indoor capacity of her current location. She says she'll also be expanding the menu ("slightly"), and "adding some nonsense to keep the space interesting."

The new building is one of several commercial and residential properties along that stretch of Marshall Avenue that border the river. That's a rarity in the city, where most of the riverfront is parkland--or, in the "Above the Falls" sections of North and Northeast Minneapolis, industrial.

The short distance from the current location should make the move--now planned for the fall, close to the establishment's seven-year anniversary--easier, though still a daunting prospect. As Bock puts it, "We are excited and scared out of our pants.

"Psycho Suzi's concept was also meant to be oceanfront. What was I thinking?" she writes. "There are plenty of oceans to be had in Minneapolis ... via the Mississippi River gateway!"

Source: Leslie Bock, Psycho Suzi's
Writer: Chris Steller