"And, how about getting a 100 year lease for a plaza on the western 1/4 of the Ritz block? (The city has a 100 year easement of some type on the plaza on the Marquette Plaza block) If we're thinking out of the box, this could really make the whole north end of the mall great."
Fifteen years ago I and a team of others designed a wonderful new plaza on this block with a solar garden and a gallery concourse to a new library. It had a hotel, office, retail, library and a new meeting place for all of Minneapolis in a skybridge that connected the office tower with the library. (We even had the farmers market in this plaza - before it actually came to Nicollet Mall.) And there was a unique outdoor amphitheater so the library could become a more interactive space with our environment instead of just inside a building. That project was scuttled by the City of Minneapolis because they didn't like the fact that one of our buildings on Marquette wasn't pushed all the way out to the street - which frankly we thought was inhumane. I believe they denied a critical water permit if I'm not mistaken. The major tenant lost confidence in the developer and we lost the opportunity to have all of these things including a new library. Eventually, the loss of the project was blamed on poor market conditions. This is partially why I believe we shouldn't hold on too tight to rigid requirements. Let your architect breath, he doesn't know everything, but he is an excellent designer and has great intuition about building placement and the movement of people. He also isn't going to let the needs assessment program suffer so that it is unworkable. Even though the library has a program, design is not a completely linear process. It is a give and take from competing interests and saying that you must solve all of one interest before entertaining another is just not wise. Frankly, I think that's why Minneapolis has gotten into trouble with so many projects - inflexible analysis and narrow vision. A few more ideas: let's trade off the funding of parking for the Walker for a sculpture garden around the new library - or funding for the Guthrie with a small performance space on Nicollet Mall that is actually programmed on a weekly basis by the Guthrie or use the current library block as a new park which could spur development on the Ritz hotel block as well as the surrounding blocks with mixed use projects including housing and workspace. If we don't dream the big dreams the big things will never happen. Just ask a Mayor who had never been elected before ;-) P.S. If Kmart goes...another great spot for a neighborhood sports stadium! Remember my Sears proposal? R u s s e l l W. P e t e r s o n Saint Michael, Minnesota [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________ "You can only fly if you stretch your wings." _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
