Nick said:
We clearly have a lot of people in the city who prefer more intensity in
land use (tall buildings) rather than less. Why shouldn't we allow them a
place to live in our city? If not in the neighborhoods that are around
downtown, then where?
Chris Johnson Said:
How are we not allowing them a place to live? Has Nick not noticed the huge
number of new condos in high-rises that have and are coming on to the
market? The SW Journal did a huge article on the very theme.
Nick Responds:
You've taken my comment out of context and rephrased it in a misleading way.
I was addressing the following, "Neither Loring Park, Lowry Hill or Elliot
Park need to be over-run with these monolithic skypollutin towers." I'll
restate my questions - To the extent you think building highrises is a
problem yet others would like to live in highrises, then where should they
be allowed? If not in Elliot Park, Loring Park, Marcy-Holmes (A-Mill) all of
which surround downtown, then where?
Chris Johnson Said:
What if all those surface parking lots Ms. Lickness mentions in the last
sentence of her paragraph were converted to 4-story buildings? I'm willing
to bet that the additional residences provided by those 4-story and no
higher buildings would allow the population to grow a tremendous amount,
much more than is expected in the next 20 years. If I'm right on that
theoretical point (we all know it won't happen), then where are the numbers
which give us any guidance at all in how many 30 story buildings we need?
(7.5 times as high and as many residences as a 4 story)
Nick Responds:
We need as many unsubsidized 30 story buildings as we can absorb to satisfy
demand. Same goes for any other height: Single-Family, Four-Story, etc.
I'm sure that developers will stop proposing them when people stop buying
units in them. I think it is a big mistake for us (the public) or the city
to limit that artificially. On the other hand there is no reason that the
city shouldn't oversee that they are designed to emphasize a pedestrian
experience, minimize shadowing, include hidden parking, etc. However I
imagine that bad design wouldn't sell particularly well, even without the
city involvement.
Chris Johnson Says:
And even more importantly, do those 30-story buildings need to be in Uptown
or Loring?
Nick Frank Responds:
No one has proposed 30-story buildings for Uptown to my knowledge. Is there
a compelling reason why they shouldn't have tall buildings?
Loring borders downtown and currently has 20-something story towers so yes,
they should be built there.
Chris Johnson Says:
Is there perhaps some greed involved on the part of developers, not wanting
to make the smaller profit of developing on a brown field or parking lot and
remaining at 4 stories, versus the much bigger profit of selling more units
of a 12 or 30 story building in the same location? The answer for a
corporation is simple -- they are always driven to get more profit. But
should we have a city designed by profit-motive or by people desiring
long-term livability and economic vitality?
Nick Frank Responds:
The position that it is just greedy developers and that they could make
money on lower density development isn't necessarily convincing, especially
in light of things like the Walker Library RFP (all developers said they
needed more height to make it work). I've got to believe that if they could
make money at the lower heights one of the developers who responded would've
gladly done it.
There is also the novel answer that they want to build tall buildings
because that is what potential owners want. These buildings are very secure
and can provide a lot more amenities due to the high density. I don't think
developers would propose any of these projects if they didn't feel it best
met what their customers are looking for.
I've stated this before but I will reprint it since I have not seen any
refutation of the argument: "Many parking lots generate a lot of revenue
relative to there relatively low tax burden (particularly in popular
location like Uptown). This is due to the way our property tax system is
structured. Consequently any sale price would have to meet or exceed the
value of the future cash flows from the parking operations. Which means
that the sale price is not set with development in mind but rather at the
value of the parking business. Since MPLS doesn't have the ability to
change the property tax system's fundamental structure, the selling price
cannot realistically be negotiated below the value of the parking business.
This means that prices can in fact exceed what is feasible under zoning
without being overpriced from an economic standpoint. In that case we can
either change the zoning or just turn away the development and keep the
parking lot. To me the answer is fairly obvious."
Whether the city should be designed by profit-motive or by people desiring
long-term livability and economic vitality presents a false dichotomy. I
don't see how we would have economic vitality without the profit-motive or
buildings built by the private sector and I don't see how the profit-motive
of tall buildings somehow hinders livability. For example, I look at Grant
Park and easily conclude that from a pedestrian and livability standpoint it
is far superior to many buildings in Uptown. It is more pleasant to walk
by. It is appropriately scaled from the street. Etc.
I don't see how ignoring the real economics of urban redevelopment based on
an arbitrary belief that low rise buildings are inherently superior is going
to help us achieve anything that resembles long-term livability and economic
vitality.
Chris Johnson Says:
Lastly, Ms. Lickness mentions world-class cities with high-rises that are
thriving urban areas. There may be some such cities, e.g. Hong Kong, where
the choice of less vertical height was somewhat limited by circumstance.
There may be some people in Minneapolis who would be happy living in such an
environment. But most world-class cities I think of, such as London, Paris,
Berlin, Munich, etc. do not have a plethora of high-rises, and in fact, have
most buildings around -
amazingly enough -- 4 stories. In fact, all of the foregoing cities except
Berlin are amazingly "flat" in perspective. They've got a few tall towers
and high-rises, but are mostly 3, 4 and 5 stories. What they don't have,
that we have in Minneapolis, is vast amounts of land devoted to surface
parking lots, giant single family home lot sizes and huge freeways gobbling
up urban core land space.
Nick Frank Responds:
Look at the relative size of the dwelling units in the cities you mention
and you'll see that they are much smaller than what the market demands in
the U.S. consequently they can have much lower buildings while maintaining
higher densities. Furthermore they do not have parking requirements (that
seem to mirror the market fairly well) of at least one parking space per
unit. Unless you have a plan for convincing Minneapolitans to live in much
smaller spaces and get rid of all the cars than we can't achieve that type
of density at those heights. That is a fact.
Surface parking lots in Minneapolis are businesses or components of
businesses for the most part. They are pay lots, parking for tenants in
residential properties (a powerful marketing component whether rental or
condos) or they exist to serve specific businesses/institutions that likely
rely on nearby parking to continue to operate. Much as I may dislike them,
it is unlikely that most of the owners will part with them or develop them
since they are integral to adjacent land uses.
Similarly we will not be relieving ourselves of the highway system any time
soon.
Are you proposing that we allow all single family housing to be replaced by
3-5 story buildings? Personally I think owners of the property should have
that option but I doubt that most people in the city would see that as a
positive way to grow. Any thoughts?
Again I restate my original question: What is it that some people find so
offensive about tall buildings?
Nick Frank
Elliot Park
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