1. Introduction
The Sears redevelopment project is a much-awaited new initiative for the Phillips
neighborhood and the Midtown Corridor in Minneapolis. Successful Sears redevelopment
can re-energize the entire corridor and neighborhood and provide a key destination
that grabs Greenway users and welcomes them. The Phillips Partnership and Midtown
Community Works Partnership seek to lend their collective investment and planning
experience to the proposal selection process in order to assist City decision
makers. The vision that these partners have established over the course of
years has always included the successful redevelopment of the Sears site and
the partners look forward to welcoming the Sears redevelopment team as a new
partner in its own right.
The Midtown Community Works Partnership has produced a Corridor Development
Framework that lays out a vision for the Midtown Corridor. The vision includes
10 principles that the Partnership has adopted as a way to think about the
Midtown Corridor.
1. Promote an integrated relationship
between new development and the Greenway. Make the corridor “Greenway
friendly.”
2. Promote opportunities for additional public and green space, dedicated
parks and trail connections along the Greenway edge.
3. Develop a premier public edge along both sides of the greenway, including
29th Street on the south side and a public promenade on the north.
4. Promote development that reinforces and relates to adjacent land uses
and appropriate architectural scale, particularly along Lake and Lagoon Streets
and at commercial nodes.
5. Locate front doors on the street, (including 29th Street and the Greenway)
and relocate service doors, away from the public realm.
6. Promote safe, calmed streets with widened sidewalks. Focus investments
toward developing an enlivened pedestrian environment and an improved public
realm.
7. Integrate transit with all redevelopment projects, including safe and
visually appealing transit stops for future light rail or busways.
8. Support compact development and promote mixed use in the corridor. Create
a more vibrant and diverse urban environment.
9. Locate parking either on the street or behind/between buildings along
the block. Consolidate parking in structures or municipal lots.
10. Promote opportunities for art in public places.
In implementing this vision, the Midtown
Community Works (MCW) Partnership has made significant
progress.
• Completion of Phase I of
the Midtown Greenway, and commencement of Phase II construction
(which includes the Sears complex) after Hennepin County
purchased the last grain elevators requiring train access
in the corridor;
• Redevelopment of blighted parcels into new housing at the Urban Village
through a $5 million capital investment fund coordinated by Wells Fargo;
• Attracting public interest in the Midtown Greenway as a metropolitan
destination place; and
• Engaging stakeholders along the Greenway and Lake Street corridor in
a multi-year process of reconstructing Lake Street and connecting it to the Midtown
Greenway.
The Phillips Partnership has set out to focus on four areas of improvement
in the Phillips neighborhood - safety, housing, jobs, and infrastructure – with
a solid record of results:
• A 29% reduction in crime since 1998;
• Establishment of the largest hospital-based job training program in the
country;
• $35 million invested or earmarked for neighborhood housing; and
• More than $800 million allocated for roads, light rail, and green space.
The following discussion applies this framework of values to the Sears redevelopment
project and summarizes comments (italicized) provided by staff members of
the Partnerships.
2. Finance and Economic Development
The Partnerships recognize that financial soundness is critical for a positive,
long-term investment in the area. Only a financially sound redevelopment project
can spur economic and community development in the Midtown Corridor and the
Phillips neighborhood. Economic development serves all stakeholders in the
community and propels improvements in safety, jobs, housing, infrastructure,
and promotes the Midtown Corridor as a destination for transportation, recreation
and investment.
A. Finances.
The MCDA’s RFP establishes financial criteria for proposals. These
criteria include a showing from the proposer that its development budget
is reasonable, that its development and operating pro formas are realistic
and financially feasible, that the cash flows incorporated into the proposal
are reasonably certain, and that the proposing team and its individual members
have demonstrated the capacity to complete a project with finances of this
complexity and scale. The partners seek a full understanding of the sources
and uses for each project component, assumptions about lease rates, and the
extent to which the proposals include tenant commitments. With the possible
exception for subsidies for low income housing, the gap between economic
value and cost should be minimized.
Given the large scale of this project and the lack of success with previous
attempts to redevelop the Sears site, selecting a financially sound proposal
is paramount. The Partnerships have been unable to receive adequate information
from the developer teams to permit financial analysis of their proposals.
Nevertheless, the Partnerships urge that the City intensely scrutinize the
financial experience and expertise of each team and its capacity to complete
a project with the financial needs of the complexity and scale of the Sears
redevelopment project; it is important that the selected developer demonstrate
sufficient net worth, past experience in large scale development projects,
and assembled expertise to indicate that the development and operating pro
formas are feasible and realistic.
B. Jobs.
The MCW Partnership has made economic development in the Midtown Corridor
a primary goal, and jobs are one of the four focus areas of the Phillips
Partnership. In addition, the Minneapolis Plan recognizes that the Phillips
area contains the most significant concentration of employment activity in
Minneapolis outside of downtown and the University of Minnesota campus. The
Partnerships also envision the Sears building as a home for the small businesses
that are the life-blood for Lake Street, and as a home for job training and
work force development centers that serve Minneapolis and especially neighboring
residents.
The partners hope that the proposals will demonstrate the potential to create
new jobs, accommodate existing employers in the area, and provide additional
space for new jobs and will engage in a full discussion of these goals. The
partners understand that potential project components include space for a
new Hennepin County Service Center and the Minneapolis Heart Foundation and
its Cardiovascular Research Lab. In addition, Abbott Northwestern Hospital’s
investment in a parking garage on the Sears complex, its planned investments
and relocations are important for jobs in Phillips, and the Partnerships
will begin a discussion on how the proposals can best leverage these investments.
Three of the four proposers have estimated that their projects would create
between 1500 and 2500 jobs (Fine, 1500-2000 jobs; Ryan, 1780 jobs; Comote,
2500 jobs). The Partnerships urge that the City pursue a development agreement
that envisions access of neighborhood residents to these jobs; that they
include a mix of commercial retail opportunities in an international ethnic
market, including opportunities for “start-up,” “step-up,” and
established businesses; and that medical office opportunities for skilled
workers be pursued in tandem with established training initiatives.
C. Leveraging Resources.
The partners have had significant success in leveraging investments by establishing
these partnerships between the public and private sectors. Individual public
and private investments are magnified by complimentary collateral investments
by other partners, and by policy-making that recognizes the advantage of
complementing private investment. The partners will engage project teams
in a discussion on how their proposals can lead to effective public-private
partnership and collaboration.
The Partnerships urge the City to assure that investments in existing businesses
at Lake and Chicago (e.g., northeast corner) be preserved, and that the selected
developer fully integrate the planning and design of their project into the
planned reconstruction of Lake Street, and proposed transportation improvements
such as the I-35W Access Project.
2. Meeting Community
Needs
The MCW Partnership and Phillips Partnership serve two overlapping, but distinct
communities. One is defined by the boundaries of the Phillips neighborhood
and the other is defined as the corridor surrounding Lake Street and the Midtown
Greenway. As members of these communities, the partners have always understood
that their organizations and institutions are only as healthy and vital as
the community of which they are part, and understand that these two communities
are healthier when the partners provide public support and economic strength.
The mutual benefits that can result when the Sears project serves the surrounding
community and the community supports the project are important, and the Partnerships
hope to promote these goals.
All four development teams focused on making community an important part of
their proposal, but did so in various ways. Comote proposed an athletic and
recreational center as the building’s centerpiece, and presented it as
an opportunity to create a new community center in Phillips and Midtown. Fine
focused much of its project on housing, but demonstrated a commitment to the
surrounding neighborhood by proposing a complimentary amenity to the Midtown
Greenway in the form of a sunken garden. Sabri intends to make the Sears building
a visible landmark on Lake Street, and to provide a refuge from the neighborhood
by creating a limited-access park on the west side of the building. Ryan’s
proposal has a balanced mix of housing and commercial space, has a partnership
with the Neighborhood Development Center, and has specific plans to preserve
existing businesses in the area.
All teams convincingly described their plans to focus on new immigrant business
opportunity, with Ryan featuring a food marketplace, Comote establishing a
$500,000 small business fund, Fine offering a retail arcade for local business,
and Sabri planning to immediately open lease opportunities for businesses.
Each of the proposals evidenced significant thought about community needs,
but also fell short in addressing the temporary and long-term parking needs
of local businesses, and the impacts of the Lake Street reconstruction and
35W access
A. Safety.
The Chicago-Lake area has been a focal point for Phillips Partnership efforts
to reduce crime. The Sears redevelopment, with its capacity to draw large
numbers of employees, consumers and residents, can be a catalyst for significant
crime reduction. To do this, however, the project must make crime prevention
an important part of the design. Specifically, the partners hope that project
teams will give attention to the sidewalks, streets, and public spaces that
surround it, and incorporate design elements that discourage crime. The Sears
complex itself should be a safe place to visit, but in establishing the security
plan for the complex, the security needs of the surrounding neighborhood,
especially the Midtown Greenway with its below-grade safety challenges, should
also be incorporated.
Each of the proposals include plans for significant street-level commercial
business, which creates “eyes” on the streets and makes a neighborhood
safer. None of the proposals, as presented, have included security plans
for the site or for the neighborhood, though the Sabri proposal includes
a walled park on the west side of the Sears building, which is intended to
be a secure area separate from the street. In addition, the Fine proposal
emphasizes “eyes” onto the Greenway, which enhance the safety
of users of that corridor.
B. Connections.
In order for the Sears complex to serve the surrounding neighborhood, in
addition to serving regional employment, housing and commercial needs, it
should be accessible for the neighborhood. This means that the partners seek
to promote plans that do not build a wall around an enclosed complex, but
rather provide access points for pedestrians, bicyclists and automobiles.
Further, the planned transit stop in the Greenway will better serve the Sears
complex and the neighborhood if access from the surrounding neighborhood
is planned, and is not oriented solely for access to and from the Sears complex.
A bus transfer connection should be integrated with the project and the Greenway
streetcar, but not in a way so as to intrude upon or wall off the Greenway.
The Sears complex cannot be an island in the neighborhood, but must be physically
integrated with it so that it may better serve the community and the community
can more readily support it. Comments from the 11th Avenue Workshop of the
Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and Midtown Phillips Lake Street
Initiative suggest that neighbors would like to see street-level commercial
space incorporated into parking garages, and hope that loading docks and
other service areas are planned so that they are removed from view and do
not create a barrier from the neighborhood. Many ways of connecting the project
to the neighborhood are possible, and the partners seek to find ways of doing
so.
The Fine, Comote, and Ryan site plans all show the Sears building connecting
to the surrounding neighborhoods in various ways. The Ryan team proposes
street-level commercial space in the Boosalis buildings at Chicago and Lake,
as well as additional commercial space planned for Lake and 10th Avenue.
This ensures that residents will be drawn to, and into, the site, rather
than kept away from it. The Sabri proposal includes a large walled park,
which creates a barrier from Chicago Avenue to the site, though the Lake
Street connection may be stronger. Comote and Fine plan a parking garage
on the east side of the Sears building, which is a potential barrier to neighborhood
access to the project, but Comote and Fine both plan commercial or housing
on the street-level of the parking garages, which will create a human-scale
environment for the neighborhood. Fine also plans connections to Powderhorn
Park, which is unique among the proposals, and Comote will connect to Lake
Street via a recreation center in the Sears Building. The large surface parking
lot on the west side of the Ryan proposal is a likely barrier to pedestrians
on Chicago Avenue, but may increase the opportunity for residents to conveniently
drive to the Sears site.
The planned transit stops generated considerable comment. Metro Transit prefers
any transit hub to be located near, and conveniently for, buses at Chicago
and Lake, one of the busiest bus intersections in the metro area. The selected
development team must continue working to ensure that the transit station
is accessible to local users, and should not create a physical barrier between
the neighborhood and the Sears building. All of the development teams appear
flexible and willing to select a transit hub location and design that meets
the needs of Metro Transit and the neighborhood.
Each proposal contains significant street-level commercial space. The Ryan
proposal would preserve existing retail in the Family Dollar Store and the
Boosalis buildings at Chicago and Lake, and would add commercial space near
the Greenway on Chicago Avenue. Ryan also has commitments from the Neighborhood
Business Center and the Latino Business Council to develop small business
opportunities. Sabri plans include using the first floor of the Sears building
for immediate small business opportunities, but plans for street-level commercial
space on the rest of the site are unclear. Fine will have significant street-level
retail space in the Sears building designed as arcades that will connect
with the Abbott Northwestern medical campus, but how these businesses will
connect to the streets is unclear. Comote has a large marketplace planned
on the west side of the Sears building, which should be a way to connect
neighbors into the project.
C. Housing.
The MCDA RFP states that housing, with 20% targeted to be affordable, is
a desired element of the redeveloped Sears complex. The Phillips Partnership
has heavily invested in improving the quality of the housing stock in the
Phillips community and in ensuring that housing improvements benefit residents
of Phillips rather than pricing them out of the area. The Partnerships will
explore the ways in which a variety of housing options can be included in
the complex, and how the project will affect the nearby housing stock.
Staff comments reflected some criticism about each of the housing proposals.
The Comote proposal features 20% affordability, which is the MCDA minimum,
and will have all of its housing developed by CommonBond, which raises the
question of where the housing market is in this area, and the importance
of housing diversity. Comote’s additional plan to put townhouses on
the street level of the planned east-side parking garage could address this
issue. Ryan proposes that 80% of its housing be affordable, but only will
offer senior and artist loft units. Fine will offer 20% to 40% affordable
housing, but the market for their proposed all-age rental apartments should
be explored further. Some staff comments suggest doubt that Sabri’s
proposal to put housing at the top of the Sears tower and work downward would
work, given the problems of staging construction. The overall need on housing
is for the developer teams to demonstrate that they are filling a market
need for housing in this neighborhood, and that they are offering a diverse
proposal.
3. Sustainable
Design
The successful Sears proposal must be more than a good concept backed by solid
finances and including community priorities. The Lake Street-Midtown Greenway
Corridor require unique design features that the MCW Partnership has invested
time and resources in planning, and the transit and transportation needs of
the area also require careful design. The following design goals will be the
basis for exploring the design features of the Sears complex.
A. Lake Street – Greenway
Connection.
The MCW Partnership has adopted priorities for the Midtown Corridor in its
Five Year Priority plan. First among these is to integrate the vision of
Lake Street and the Midtown Greenway as a single corridor and to promote
strong connections between them. The Sears building fronts Lake Street and
actually bridges the Greenway making this the best single opportunity in
the corridor to connect these two elements. The connection to be made between
the Greenway and Lake Street is physical: pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit
users should be able to move from one to the other in an intuitive way, and
elements that make this possible could include signs, clear lines-of-sight,
graceful pathways without steep grades or switchbacks, and landscape and
public art features that attract attention to the connection between these
two corridor elements. In addition, the MCW Partnership has begun a collaboration
with the Pilot Cities Initiative to promote the vitality of Lake Street.
The partners envision that the Sear complex can connect new businesses and
residents with the Greenway and promote their unique role in the economy
of Minneapolis.
The four developers have expressed distinct visions for
the western, Chicago Avenue side of the Sears property, which
offers the greater opportunity for corridor connectivity than
the eastern, 10th Avenue Side, which all four proposals identify
as the location for a parking ramp. The Ryan proposal would
create a landscaped parking plaza along most of the site’s
Chicago verge, with a transit station at Chicago-Lake. While
landscaped, this design dominated by surface parking, and would
seem to accommodate a mix of transportation modes less effectively
than the Fine and Comote proposals. Both of these teams have
articulated an urban plan for the western side, with reasonable
accommodations for cars, walkers and cyclists. The Comote team’s
proposal would offer the denser development of the two, favoring
pedestrians through most of the western portion of the site.
The Sabri team’s proposal to create a fenced-in park
along Chicago Ave would restrict the site’s access between
Lake and the Greenway to the Sears building itself.
B. Greenway Orientation.
The Midtown Greenway becomes a tunnel beneath the current Sears building,
and any redevelopment project must enhance the experience of Greenway users
as they move through the corridor. The MCW Partnership has identified four
Greenway-friendly features that each proposal should include: effective lighting,
effective security and Greenway access, landscaping, and public art. At other
locations, there has not been proper space for effective access and ramps
have been sandwiched into the county-owned rail corridor, thereby hiding
the Greenway trails. This site offers a key opportunity to create a significant
sense of place along the Greenway. In addition, the MCW Partnership has established
a design goal of creating a “premiere public edge” along the
Greenway. At the Sears site, this means that the partners will look for a
proposal that will in some way open up to the Greenway rather than turning
its back on it. Proposals should also demonstrate that they will create new
opportunity to see into, gain access into and enhance the profile of the
Midtown Greenway.
The “Lake Street-Midtown Greenway Corridor Framework
Plan,” published in 1999 by the MCW Partnership and Hennepin
County, has been a central guidance document. It discusses
opportunities to open up the Greenway to larger public spaces
like parks and amphitheaters, and such an expansion of the
Greenway’s right of way could be beneficial at the Sears
site, under which the Greenway passes.
The Fine proposal most comprehensively addressed the Greenway originally,
the Ryan and Comote teams have modified their designs to accommodate the
interests of Greenway users.
Comote’s original design drew criticism for locating bus facilities
too close to the Greenway and too far from Lake Street; the team’s
revised layouts would relocate the bus hub closer to Lake and offer multiple
connections to the Greenway, including a sloping greenspace leading up from
the trench to a proposed new international marketplace to the west of the
1928 Sears building. Ryan’s proposal would include a ramp to a future
streetcar platform, but this involves the construction of retaining walls
on the Greenway trench that would limit sight lines out of the Greenway and
decrease the activity that could occur in the immediate area. Fine would
develop a sunken garden with native plantings and stones. It would expand
the open space in the trench, creating a natural and accessible intermediary
between the Greenway’s right-of-way and a basement atrium heavy on
public art. Sabri’s proposal would created a fenced-in park on the
site’s eastern side, creating a visual continuity of greenspace but
not a physical continuity.
All the proposals include uses that would increase safety in the Greenway
as it passes under the site. Fine’s conversion of the 1964 Sears addition
that straddles the Greenway trench into a hotel with a glass curtain wall
appears to be the most comprehensive in addressing safety. None of the teams
has specifically addressed Greenway lighting, though all the proposals are
conducive to increased lighting of the Greenway in the vicinity of the 1964
addition.
C. Transit Orientation.
A transit station serving bus riders on Lake Street and Chicago Avenues is
recognized in the MCDA RFP, which lists a Metro Transit-funded transit facility
as a preferred project component. The MCW Partnership has also formally endorsed
development of a streetcar transit system in the Greenway, with the future
possibility of converting the system to light rail. The partners believe
that a transit station on the Greenway line should be designed to adequately
accommodate Sears complex users and residents of the surrounding neighborhood.
Both bus and streetcar transit station functions at the Sears site will bring
significant benefit to the complex by bringing more people to it while reducing
traffic congestion on Lake Street and the need for parking accommodations.
Metro Transit operates the 11th largest municipal bus service
in the United States, and the Chicago-Lake intersection, even
with the nearby Sears building vacant, is currently the busiest
transfer point in its system outside of downtown Minneapolis.
Transit activity at the intersection is expected to increase
with the introduction of limited-stop service running west
along Lake from the Hiawatha Light Rail station; service will
increase again with the completion of the proposed transit
hub at Lake and 1-35W (part of the Access project). Thus the
demand generated by the mixed-use redevelopment of the Sears
property earns transit facilities central consideration in
site planning. The Sears site would also be the largest foreseen
stop in a streetcar, yet to be developed, that the MCW Partnership
has endorsed in the Greenway.
An established and growing ridership, the intricate geometries and time considerations
of circulating buses through a hub, and the need to coordinate site work
with the reconstruction of Lake Street - which will itself impact bus service
- make bus service by far the more urgent of the two transit modes for developers
to address. The siting of a bus hub could impact air quality in and accessibility
to the Greenway.
Because of the need to preserve Chicago-Lake as a transfer location, all
four proposals have sited bus accommodations on the site’s western
verge. Metro Transit staff gives passing marks to the Ryan, Fine and Comote
proposals as restated during the community review process. The siting of
the bus hub in Ryan’s original proposal was considered unacceptable
and the Fine and Comote proposals also need to address with concerns about
circulation bus.
In the case of the Comote proposal, which would integrate a bus hub with
parking, siting is the issue; it sits mid-block on Chicago north of Lake.
Fine’s proposed hub might have too small a footprint. The Sabri proposal
is unacceptable to Metro Transit staff because it assumes that Metro Transit
will demolish the Boosalis property on the northeast corner of Chicago-Lake
to make way for an open-air bus hub that would preserve views of the Sears
building. Metro Transit staff indicates that the agency will not likely buy
the Boosalis property.
The four developers offer an interface for a future streetcar stop. The Sabri
proposal is vague on the character of this connection. Ryan offers a ramp
to a streetcar platform that has been criticized for restricting sightlines
and activity because of the retaining wall that buttresses this ramp. The
Fine proposal offers a softer, landscaped connection, and the Comote team
has improved its approach since its original submission.
D. Public Art.
Through a collaborative public process, the MCW Partnership has established
a framework for public art in the corridor. Among its recommendations in
the Sears area are an urban life art exhibition gallery and a design-enhanced
Chicago Avenue bridge. Currently the City of Minneapolis is working with
the MCW Partnership to develop a bridge design for Chicago Avenue that will
serve as a piece of public art and meet the City’s bridge replacement
cost limits. The partners hope to discuss with project teams how the Sears
design might relate to the Chicago Avenue Bridge and whether it will provide
space for community-based art exhibition. The partners have also sponsored
events to attract attention to the Greenway as public space, and space for
public art and other events would be a beneficial component of a Sears redevelopment
proposal.
Only the Fine proposal specifically includes public art
in the form of incorporating tile work by local school children
into its sunken garden. However, the Ryan, Comote and Fine
proposals all include basement or first-floor community space
that could be programmed for the arts. The Midtown Greenway
Coalition is advocating for a line item expenditure of up to
2 percent of project budget on public art.
4. Conclusion
The MCW Partnership and the Phillips Partnership have invested significant
time, energy, and resources in developing these goals over a period of years.
They have engaged in extensive public process to develop this vision and framework
of values, and the partnerships represent stakeholders from throughout the
Midtown Corridor and Phillips neighborhood. The Sears project will bring significant
change to the Phillips and the Midtown Corridor, and have a potential to reorient
the community, economic and commercial life in the area. With the amount of
change that this project may bring, the partners will endeavor to collaborate
with the successful redevelopment project team and welcome them to the community.
The partners are eager to see that the Sears Redevelopment Project will enhance
the efforts that they have begun to energize these communities. |
