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Czervik.Construction

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No one:
Absolutely no one:
Me: Here is something you didn't know you needed until now....a Minneapolis development thread!! 🍾

I live here, so might as well post stuff.

This is Eleven, designed by Robert A.M. Stern. It was completed a couple of months ago and people have started moving in. It is about 35 floors, right on the Mississippi River. This thing is top shelf all around.
It is a mini version of 220 Central Park South or those other new, but look old residential towers. I never could figure out why something like this hasn't been built in Boston. I think it would fit right in vs another glass box.
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Here is Ye Olde skyline. The wide glass slab in the front left is the RBC Gateway that has RBC Bank and the new Four Seasons hotel and condos. I checked it out and it is really well done. As the first luxury branded hotel in the city (strangely this city has no Ritz, St Regis, Four Seasons - until now, etc.), they did a great job of making it very luxurious and special without being too over the top and gaudy. It is welcoming, which is good as the pioneer in lux hotels in the city.

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I love how Certain Segments of Society out in Minnesota keep going on about how mInNeApOlIs iS sO dAnGeRoUs in the wake of the 2020 uprising, and yet developers keep seeing seriously strong market demand for projects like this.

It's almost like those Certain Segments are...full of it?
 
Well, like a lot of big cities, MPLS crime is up over 2019 which was a historic low, but over the longer term, it is still incredibly safe. The downtown got pretty bad during and after Covid but has also been slowly coming back to life - not like a Boston, SF or NYC, but much busier.

The North Loop has had billions of dollars poured into it to renovate old factories and warehouses to offices and housing, with lots of additional housing added over the last 10 years. This development is unique in my opinion because there is a height limit in the North Loop of about 7 or 8 floors, so this one must be in an overlapping zone or something.
 
One problem with Minny: The winters are harsh compared to Boston which is pretty mild these days.
 
One problem with Minny: The winters are harsh compared to Boston which is pretty mild these days.

Yeah. Boston's weather is bad enough. Can't imagine something like Minny.
 
One problem with Minny: The winters are harsh compared to Boston which is pretty mild these days.
They are, but you'd be amazed what a proper coat, long underwear and a positive attitude can do. Not sure how things are going post-pandemic, but when I lived there about 10 years ago, there were loads of festivals and outdoor activities that seemed to get most folks enjoying the weather.
 
I take a twin cities winter all day over Boston. NYC is a toss-up.

Yes, it gets colder here, however, we really have 8 bad weeks - all of January and February (low 20's with a few weeks of daytime highs below zero). December and March are regular cold (~30 degrees).

What we do not have here is the raw dampness or the intense wind of New England winters. The air is dry and still, and often sunny. So, even if it is cold, if you're bundled up, it is fine. And the trade is amazing spring and fall weather and summers that are dry and in the mid-80's. Also, the sun sets a little after 9pm in the summer, so it can be a little light out close to 10pm.

Ok, enough derailing from me.

They are, but you'd be amazed what a proper coat, long underwear and a positive attitude can do. Not sure how things are going post-pandemic, but when I lived there about 10 years ago, there were loads of festivals and outdoor activities that seemed to get most folks enjoying the weather.
 
Yes, it gets colder here, however, we really have 8 bad weeks - all of January and February (low 20's with a few weeks of daytime highs below zero). December and March are regular cold (~30 degrees).

Daytime highs below 0 are completely unacceptable. I have already taken a ton of good walks this winter, like I do most winters. It starts becoming quite unpleasant when the "feels like" falls below 20 degrees. As an immediate example, right now it's 44 in Boston and 16 in Minneapolis. Even with sun and absolutely no wind, 16 is unpleasant walking weather (or sledding, skiing, essentially anything outdoors).

From December-February, it looks like the average temperature for Boston is about 14-15 degrees higher than Minneapolis. For those of us from Boston, how would you feel if we dropped the winter temps by that much? Is it really offset by a little less wind? Boston has some super windy streets for sure, but those are often specific wind-tunnels and not exactly comprehensive. A drop in average temperature as severe as 14-15 degrees in winter is HARSH!
 
I'd call it "a lot less wind," actually. And the intense sun goes a long way. Not nearly so many cloudy days in the Midwest vs. the Northeast, at least in my memory.
 
I hear your points and as a former Northeasterner. I couldn't believe it myself until I experienced it.

1. Wind - once you leave the northeast, especially Boston, you notice the lack of constant wind. Getting knocked around by the wind and being consistently exposed to it is impactful on ability to deal with it. We generally have a slight breeze or still air.
2. Humidity/dampness - Boston and NYC are very damp in the winter relative to MN. The dampness causes that "gets into your bones cold", like when you stand outside you feel the cold just seeping in. We don't have any of that.
3. We have a lot of sunny days. Not like Hawaii or anything, but a lot of clear days. We also have a snowpack that forms in late November after a hard freeze and then you don't see the grass again until April. The snow reflects the sun and feels even brighter.
3. We do lots of outdoor stuff here - riding bikes with fat tires, sledding, cross-country skiing, ice skating, walks around the lakes, etc. - you learn how to properly bundle up and you are fine. As a counterpoint, I was in Miami for Thanksgiving and it was high 80's and humid and it was too hot to do anything outside.

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor who is from Boston and I were commenting on the weather that week - grey, dreary, damp, sleet and heavy snow. It felt like Boston. I roll down my car window and he yells, "this weather sucks - just like Boston".

A dry sunny day here is amazing with our snow cover - it never melts, btw

Last weekend we went to an ice sculpture competition and then to an art exhibition that is held on a frozen lake in the city (all the lakes are frozen). It was about 18 degrees tops. The weekend before we went to an ice palace. We had a great time, bundle ourselves and the kids up and both events were packed. People get on with things.

And as I said above, the spring, fall and especially the summers here are absolutely amazing. So we suck it up in the winter and get payback in the warmer seasons. I live in the city and can walk to 3 lakes and biking trails and am also walking distance to whole foods, a bakery, etc. Add in the much lower cost of living and you can get why people deal with it.

A job recruiter once said, "you can't people to come to Minneapolis and you can't get them to leave either".


Daytime highs below 0 are completely unacceptable. I have already taken a ton of good walks this winter, like I do most winters. It starts becoming quite unpleasant when the "feels like" falls below 20 degrees. As an immediate example, right now it's 44 in Boston and 16 in Minneapolis. Even with sun and absolutely no wind, 16 is unpleasant walking weather (or sledding, skiing, essentially anything outdoors).

From December-February, it looks like the average temperature for Boston is about 14-15 degrees higher than Minneapolis. For those of us from Boston, how would you feel if we dropped the winter temps by that much? Is it really offset by a little less wind? Boston has some super windy streets for sure, but those are often specific wind tunnels and not exactly comprehensive. A drop in average temperature as severe as 14-15 degrees in winter is HARSH!
 
^^^That's such a major difference. Our lowest day-time high equals their highest. Our lowest night-time low is higher than their highest. Our "feels like" never goes below 0, whereas theirs remains below 0 for a week straight. I'll accept 5 mile an hour higher winds and negligible humidity differences in exchange for the extra 15-20 degrees!!!
 
Interesting perspective on the Minny weather, thanks. I'll still take New England winters, we also seem to be warming rapidly thanks to climate change so in another twenty years it will probably be pleasant year round.
 
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From: The Development Tracker

4th and Park luxury apartments:

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Our own little Greystar/Vero, etc. in St. Louis Park.
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Boutique hotel going up in the North Loop. That little old white building being propped up in the middle was removed from the site, literally parked on the street around the corner while they built the new concrete structure and then wedged it back in.
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Is that boutique hotel where Haute Dish used to be on North Washington, a few doors down from Sex World? It's been a while since I lived in Minneapolis, but that's the only two-story white building I can remember in the North Loop 😅
 
If you were a teen in the Minneapolis orbit in the 1990s or early 2000s, you knew about Sex World and secretly were desperate to see what was inside. Turns out, it was just 3 stories of gaudy, cheap-as-can-be sex toys, porn, lingerie, "adult novelties" and peep shows (NSFW photos in that Thrillist piece). Even though it was started in the early 1990s, it was a throwback to mid-century, when that part of the city was a Skid Row and red-light district that was bulldozed into stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwestern_National_Life_Building.

Haute Dish was a fancy restaurant that tried to elevate "hot dish" (casserole, to the rest of the country) from a blue-collar staple into fine dining and got a lot of press and some affection for the effort.

Gives you a sense of the neighborhood's trajectory in a single block.
 

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