Plans to open the intersection of Nicollet and Lake underway | StarTribune

Mpls. apartment boom underway | StarTribune.com

Two new towers for the Minneapolis skyline!

• Nicollet Residences, a 330-unit, 33-story apartment building at 5th Street and the Nicollet Mall. Opus Development says construction is expected to begin in October, and finish in mid-2014.

• 1368 Spruce Place, a 354-unit, 36-story apartment complex in Loring Park. Chicago-based developer Magellan Development said construction will begin in late summer of this year and finish in the spring of 2014.

Prosperity catalyst | Twin Cities Daily Planet

The late namesake of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome famously observed that without professional sports the Twin Cities would be nothing more than “a cold Omaha.” Well, we’ve dodged that bullet. Even if the Vikings leave town without getting a new playground, we’d still have three major pro teams, plus the football Gophers, performing in their own publicly-funded facilities. Omaha can’t come close to matching that.

Where the Twin Cities don’t measure up to their smaller, warmer Midwestern neighbors, however, is in transit connectivity to jobs. A 2011 report from the Brookings Institution found that our metropolis trails not only Omaha, but also Des Moines, Madison, Milwaukee and Wichita, in getting people to work by bus or rail.

We have fewer working-age residents near transit stops and less frequent service than the national average, which is led, surprisingly, by many cities in the West. Even sprawling Los Angeles does better, as do Fresno, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Tucson.

Fortunately, there’s an outstanding proposal to boost our competitiveness in this vital area—the Southwest light-rail project. It’s supported by a near-unanimous business lobby, local governments, federal officials and a strong majority of Minnesotans. It would directly create more than 3,500 jobs while connecting workers to more than a quarter of a million more, 60,000 of them to be added in the Southwest corridor by 2030.

There’s just one catch. Conservatives who control the Minnesota Legislature have zeroed out Gov. Mark Dayton’s request for $25 million in state borrowing to hold the project’s place in line for $625 million in federal funding. These supposedly business-friendly leaders insist on ignoring the support of five different chambers of commerce for the Southwest line. They’ve vowed to stop the project “in its tracks,” even if it means wasting tens of millions on delays beyond the 2018 all-aboard target.

Some of these same so-called conservatives also favor spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a new Vikings stadium, which would accommodate something like 70,000 fans for 10 games a season, not counting other events that would happily continue at the 30-year-old Metrodome. Southwest LRT is projected to serve 30,000 riders every weekday—a year’s worth of Vikings attendees every month.

On top of that, the same January 2012 bipartisan survey noted above found that 76 percent of Minnesotans say the state would benefit from expanded transit service, 69 percent would like to use transit more often if it were convenient and 61 percent back funding the Southwest LRT. In Hennepin and Ramsey counties alone, 69 percent support the Southwest initiative, with only 26 percent opposed.

“From the Red River Valley to southeastern Minnesota’s bluff country, Minnesotans from all walks of like believe the state would benefit from having an expanded and improved public transportation system,” the survey authors from GOP-oriented Public Opinion Strategies and DFL-aligned Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates concluded. “That finding helps explain why there is such solid voter support—both statewide and especially in the metro area—for moving forward with the Southwest Light Rail Line.”

Furthermore, three-quarters of the 700 voters surveyed statewide found these arguments for the light rail convincing:

• “Transit ridership in the region keeps growing, and we need to continue to meet the need for a reliable way to school and work.”

• “One million more people are projected to live in the Twin Cities area in the next 25 years. If we do not invest in providing more transportation options now, we’ll have more traffic and clogged roads, more pollution and a worse quality of life.”

• “The Southwest Light Rail Line and other public transportation improvements are supported by the Minneapolis and St. Paul Chambers of Commerce [not to mention the TwinWest, Eden Prairie and Edina chambers], other area business groups and hundreds of employers across the region as a way to reduce traffic congestion and provide a way for workers to get to jobs more easily.”

A Vikings stadium and the Southwest LRT have the same daunting price tag: $1 billion plus. Each requires hundreds of millions in contributions from local taxpayers ($500 million from Hennepin County property taxes and Twin Cities sales taxes for the LRT). The proposed state share of $125 million over several years for the Southwest would leverage $9 for every $1 borrowed.

Economic benefits of publicly financed sports arenas are arguable at best, while state-of-the-art transit is a proven widespread prosperity catalyst. The Central Corridor LRT, which won’t start running until 2014, already has spurred lots of redevelopment along St. Paul’s blighted University Avenue. The Northstar and Hiawatha lines also are drawing investments in housing, commerce and employment. The major redevelopment promised for the area around the Metrodome 30 years ago never happened.

We’ll never be a cold Omaha when it comes to professional sports. But it will take some catching up to attain that dubious distinction for our growing population of transit riders.

Big plans for a vacant block | StarTribune

The old Jaguar car dealership in downtown Minneapolis may soon get its long-awaited new life.

Developer Ryan Cos. is expected to sign a purchase agreement next week for the Hennepin Avenue site to build a new apartment building with retail space and a grocery store, say sources with knowledge of the deal.

Tony Barranco, retail development director with Minneapolis-based Ryan Cos., confirmed he’s heading up the company’s effort on the project but declined to comment.

The key downtown block, 2.4 acres at 222 Hennepin Av. S., has been empty since the Jaguar dealership closed in 2007 and moved to Golden Valley.

Milliken Development Group, based in North Vancouver, British Columbia, originally paid $14 million for the block in 2005, and tried to develop a condo tower with a Whole Foods grocery store in it. But that project fizzled as the condo market got quickly crowded and the recession hit. The property went back to HSBC Bank USA about a year ago.

The old Gateway District’s future is certainly looking brighter. 

St. Paul kick-starts its future | Star Tribune

On Wednesday, Coleman stood across the street from that dusty dent and announced an initiative to jump-start the Lofts at Farmer’s Market and other stalled projects across the city. The spark will be $15 million in new local spending, which is expected to unlock more than $100 million in state, federal and private investments and create hundreds of jobs for seven projects.