CB2 Proposal Falls Short

Business, Featured, Real Estate — By Thatcher Imboden on October 26, 2010 9:43 pm

UPDATE (November 4, 2010)The Planning Commission voted to continue the application for Calhoun Square’s alterations until the December 13, 2010 Planning Commission meeting. City staff had recommended approval, which usually means that delaying their decision is either to allow for more information to be gathered or to allow time for the applicant to revisit a component of their plans that the Planning Commission is concerned about.

————-
Original Post

Calhoun Square is seeking to amend their approved land use plans to allow a single-story CB2 (Crate & Barrel 2) store instead of a five-story mixed-use building. While in a lot of ways, CB2 would be an exciting addition to Uptown, the lack of density is concerning.

Background

Going back as far as the late 1990s, Calhoun Square was in need of a major renovation, as the second floor and the east side of the first floor atrium were not able to support most of the tenants that moved in and soon after moved out. Back then, building management wanted to freshen up the finishes of the mall and straighten out a few of the hallways. Some improvements were made but the major corridor changes and major finish upgrades didn’t come.

By the mid-2000s, new owners were hoping to implement an even larger vision, one with new buildings on almost two block faces of Lake Street and new buildings along portions of Hennepin Avenue to 31st Street. After a sometimes contentious battle with the neighborhood association, Calhoun Square earned approvals from the City for a development plan for its entire site, including demolishing a two-story older brick building on the northeast corner of Hennepin Avenue and 31st Street. The new building was to be a five-story building with underground parking. The first and second floors were to be commercial in use and the upper three levels were to be housing.

Flash forward to 2010. Calhoun Square has been seeking tenants for their site and have been in discussions with CB2, which is a Crate & Barrel store with only a handful of stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, and soon one in Toronto. Uptown Minneapolis must be considered a good market for CB2 considering that there are a lot of markets the store hasn’t opened in yet. As one real estate professional close to the deal described it as “if Crate & Barrel is oak and leather, then CB2 is metal and ink” referring to their target demographic having piercings and tattoos. The brand was recently described by Calhoun Square management as “a higher quality Ikea” and a sleeker and less expensive version of Crate & Barrel. The CB2 website describes themselves as an “affordable modern for apartment, loft, and home.”

The Proposal

The new store would open in November 2011, according to Calhoun Square’s General Manager, Ken Seifert. The store would be a 24′ tall, single-story building designed to “fit contextually with the primarily two-story buildings in Uptown,” according to their land use application. The building would have two entrances, one off of Hennepin Avenue just north of 31st Street and one off of the rear side near 31st Street, which will be close to the parking garage and feature a patio display area.

The facade would be Rheinzink metal wall tile on most of the solid walls on the front, rear, and 31st Street sides of the building along with some painted steel, and curtain wall (including some warehouse-style windows), metal ornamental grates, aluminum composite metal panels, painted concrete blocks and painted stucco. The concrete blocks would be near the loading docks.

The building is proposed to be “designed to meet the criteria of LEED certification”, which likely means that they’ll design the building to LEED (environmentally-friendly) standards but will not seek designation, which isn’t uncommon due to the cost of accreditation. Specifically, the application states that the Rheinzink is “green”, as is using recycled metals in places, fiber cement board, low wattage lighting, motion and daylight sensors for lighting, limited interior walls, and the provision of skylights.

Several site plan changes are also included, which would fix the odd parking ramp entrance off of 31st Street, which currently has construction barricades preventing drivers from curving left into the delivery area. Apparently, this is the result of a previous plan to eventually use the curb cut closer to Hennepin as an entry to an underground parking garage under the area proposed for the CB2 building and the current loading area. Instead, Calhoun Square proposes permanently closing off the drive aisle over the pedestrian crossing and forgetting the future underground parking garage.

The Concern
While CB2 would be in a lot of ways a fitting National tenant for Uptown given its uniqueness in the Twin Cities market, the limited supply of relatively affordable housewares in and near Uptown, and the draw it will likely have to other area businesses, however the proposed plan changes are disappointing in their lack of future density on that corner.

The community worked long and hard on the Uptown Small Area Plan, in many cases having tension-filled meetings debating height and density. While not everyone was happy with a five-story building at that corner, the community made it clear that single story buildings were not appropriate in the core of Uptown. The Uptown Small Area Plan clearly discourages one-story commercial buildings (page 79), is located on a property that’s preferred as “mixed use” (page 80), and that density and intensity be concentrated in the core of Uptown (page 86).

The original Calhoun Square redevelopment plan had some strengths and some weaknesses. It’s strengths were adding density to the site by adding additional commercial and residential space. Not everyone in the community (such as the CARAG neighborhood group) was pleased with the height of the projects but just recently, that same organization came out saying that they didn’t support the CB2 project because it lacks density. That’s a big message from an organization that historically has had significant concerns regarding the intensification of Calhoun Square.

What Should be Done

Given that in this economy it can be challenging to finance spec housing or office, and as such, no developer or landlord would want to jeopardize securing a tenant (CB2) because of the other components of the project not being viable. As a result, Calhoun Square should seriously consider constructing the CB2 building so it can support additional height in the future.

It isn’t uncommon to build buildings so that additions on top can be added when the market allows. Calhoun Square, according to my sources, told the CARAG neighborhood that the lack of clarity on what the market could build on top of CB2 makes it very difficult to construct the building to accommodate a later vertical addition. Calhoun Square then told the Uptown Association that CB2′s concerns over future impacts during construction is what is preventing the possible addition. Neither reason seems strong given that structural engineers and architects should be able to at least design a simple, perhaps more limited, vertical addition in the future.

I would advocate that Calhoun Square should design a possible addition of at least one story above CB2, assuming office space as it would likely not require any additional parking due to the ample availability of daytime parking in Uptown and office construction tends to be simpler and require less planning than housing (re: plumbing, constantly changing housing unit types, etc).

The future of CB2 and Calhoun Square is slated to be resolved by the Minneapolis Planning Commission on November 1, 2010. Perhaps they can approve the project subject to staff approval of adequate structural accommodations for a future vertical addition.

Tags: Business News, Calhoun Square, Hennepin-Lake, Retail