Thread by @WedgeLIVE

Busy times on Girard Ave. Plans for three new apartment buildings on the agenda for a couple of neighborhood associations in the Uptown area. 2700, 2800, and 3200 blocks of Girard.

2701-2715 Girard - 119 apartment homes would replace 3 single family homes and 1 duplex.

2824-2832 Girard - 76 apartment homes would replace 3 single family homes.

3224-3236 Girard - apartment building (?? units) would replace 3 single family homes and 1 duplex.

Same developers on all three buildings. Yellow Tree along with Perkins Levin (aka, the Turkey Guys).

Interesting detail about these Girard properties in the Wedge (27xx and 28xx). Both were downzoned very recently, in 2016.

Max height used to be 84 feet. Now, 56 ft.

Max floor area ratio used to be 3.0. Now, 2.0.

Expecting people to show up to a neighborhood meeting tomorrow complaining about density gone wild. But actually you've been living one street off Hennepin Avenue designated for very dense housing forever. All that's happened recently is they downzoned it.

I'm at the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association Zoning and Planning Committee for a presentation of the 27th/Girard and 28th/Girard buildings.

First we hear from former board members vouching for the home loans they've taken advantage of, administered by this city funded neighborhood org. (It's great when you get to tailor the loans to your personal needs.)

Lyn Lake parking lot update. City owned lot that could be developed in coming years. Lyn Lake business rep says, we have enough parking, it's just not utilized very well. They did a study.

southwestjournal.com/news/2019/04/l…

Morgan Luzier offers some goals: robust public realm, a place to sit in Lyn Lake without buying something, affordability.

Avoiding "mediocrity."

Public realm criteria

Luzier speaking of Lyn Lake: "25 years ago surface parking put us on the map. It made us."

Now, there are plenty of places to park, but "you just can't find it."

Before we get to the Girard developments, committee chair offers some clarification about neighborhood org power: this is an advisory body to the city with no real power.

Talking about the first two on this list. 27th and 28th streets. Girard, just off Hennepin Ave.

https://twitter.com/WedgeLIVE/status/1138562161171582976

Guy from Yellow Tree says 2 months ago Perkins and Levin reached out to team up. Their goal is projects aimed at people making $30-60k per year. They call it the entry point for market rate housing.

No shortage of voices reminding the developer is not Old Chicago anymore, it's the Piggy Bank. The Wedge's most troubled restaurant spot. Adjacent to the Uptown Transit Center.

#correction on an earlier tweet. 28th and Girard behind the Piggy Bank was not downzoned in 2016. Still R6. I didn't realize we still had R6 in the Wedge.

28xx Girard: parking elevator. "Where we would normally Park 12 cars we can park 34." Everything from studios to 2 bedrooms.

Green wall to the south assures green views for Piggy Bank parking lot users.

Bad news about the car elevator: "you're not riding this thing." It's German made and fully automated.

Concern from a resident: not enough parking. Your residents won't use transit.

Reminder this is basically on top of the Uptown Transit Center. Designated as Transit 10 in the 2040 plan.

Second question about parking. Cars overflowing into the neighborhood.

Parking policy is settled in Minneapolis, especially in the Wedge. This is all a waste of time.

Developer: "The only thing worse than not enough parking is too much parking." It's expensive. It affects everyone's rent.

Uh. "In a few years they're gonna look like all those 1960s apartments."

Hey I live in one of those!

70% AMI rents, according to developer. This is a market rate building. No subsidy.

Studio, 1095

Micro 1 bed, 1275

1 bed, 1495

2 bed, 18-1900

Rejoice! They're adding 2 spaces of street parking. Removing a couple driveways.

NEXT: 27th and Girard. 6 walkup units fronting Girard Ave. 119 units total.

Brick to emulate the neighborhood context. 🧱

"other than profit what motivated you to shoehorn this building into a neighborhood where it's drastically out of scale.... [Except Hennepin] Everything else is a residential house."

Guy is convinced this is a neighborhood of single family and duplex homes. It's really not.

"I actually live in the shadow of this BM of a building." I think that's what I heard.

"I mentally planned myself for a 3 story building."

"No one can see in my yard currently"

"I'm gonna have six stories of people peering into my backyard."

Reference to "The halfway house with pedophiles." (That's a new one to me.)

Guy is back to claim this is a low density neighborhood.

Someone suggests they bargain away some parking for a shorter building.

Same rents as mentioned for the other building. 70%AMI.

$150 month for parking.

Running through seasonal shadow slides.

Yeah, maybe for studios and micro 1 bedroom.

The ultimate developer gotcha. Would you want this building in your backyard? No that's why he moved away. (They got him)

More concern about staring into backyards.

Particularly painful to be back at a neighborhood meeting tonight. In the unlikely event you were informed by tonight's coverage, support Wedge LIVE!
patreon.com/wedgelive

This cat lives in one of those 60s-era apartment buildings everyone is always complaining about. To make things worse he sets up his bed and his blankets right on the window and exposes his naked body to the neighborhood every morning. Run and tell Lisa Bender.