Housing rises along Minnesota light-rail line

The full 12 miles of the Hiawatha Line, the first light-rail route in the Twin Cities, opened last December and is now attracting about 20,400 passenger trips each weekday. High ridership — the line is exceeding projections by 46 percent — is proving to be a boon to transit-oriented development both in Minneapolis, where 10 of the 17 stations are located, and in suburban Bloomington, home of the gargantuan Mall of America. The line, which runs from downtown Minneapolis to the mall, is generating a flurry of housing construction. Along five miles of the Minneapolis portion of the route, “nearly 1,350 housing units have been proposed, are in construction, or are fully built,” said Mark Garner, a planner in the Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development Department. That figure does not include 6,000 units in downtown Minneapolis, where Garner said the light-rail line is “an amenity and an added plus, but not the driver of development.” The biggest single undertaking along the route is Bloomington Central Station, which McGough Development is building on 47 acres in Bloomington, between the mall and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. McGough broke ground in March for two 17-story glass towers containing 267 condominium units. Buyers committed to nearly all the units more than a year before their anticipated July 2006 completion. Five more 17-story towers are to be built later, along with townhouses and mid-rise buildings — all in a street-friendly format that has been pioneered in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia (see December 2003 New Urban News). Architects for the residential buildings in Bloomington Central are Hancock Bruckner Eng & Wright of Vancouver. In addition to Bloomington Central’s eventual 1,100 for-sale housing units, the $750 million project will have a hotel, two million square feet of new office space, 550,000 square feet of existing office towers, and approximately 70,000 square feet of service retail. People are willing to pay “a 30 to 40 percent premium” to live along the rail line in Bloomington Central, said Gregory S. Miller, development manager at McGough. “They can shed a car,” he explained, and can use light rail to get to work, catch a plane, or go out for dinner and entertainment. mallbound on transit In late April, New Urban News rode the sleek, comfortable light-rail system from downtown Minneapolis directly into a garage attached to the nation’s largest mall, a 36-minute trip. The atmosphere at the mall’s end of the line was not welcoming — the garage is gray and utilitarian. As if to show that they don’t really care, the mall’s operators have erected few signs telling visitors how to find their way from the shops and entertainment to the trains. But at least it’s a functioning connection. Mark Fabel, project manager for Bloomington Central, said it’s only the beginning. “We’re trying to link our [project’s] pedestrian corridor to the mall,” he said, noting that his development is about a quarter-mile from the mall. He expects that sidewalks and a bike path with heavy landscaping will eventually give the several thousand workers and residents at Bloomington Central a pleasant nonvehicular route to the mall. The Denver office of EDAW devised the master plan. A curbless plaza will be built along part of the rail line in Bloomington Central. “Pedestrians will share it with the automobiles,” according to Fabel. Trees and other objects will indicate where autos are prohibited. There will also be a central park and an active streetscape, intended to make this “a 24-hour project,” Miller said. McGough discovered that people over 50 who travel and dine out frequently are especially enthusiastic about living close to rail transit. Because airport runways are less than two miles away, the towers are being outfitted with a sealed, triple-glazed window system that blocks noise. Ventilation will be supplied from a central unit, as in an office building, to further mitigate noise. The high-rises will be LEED-certified for environmental performance. The condo units will average about 1,000 square feet and will sell for an average of $250,000. Low-cost right-of-way The Hiawatha Line, offering two stations at the airport, makes it possible for travelers to get there from downtown for just $1.75. The line’s other stops include a VA hospital, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, city and county government offices, and the Minneapolis Warehouse District, which has lately been bursting with loft apartments and eating and drinking establishments. The line also passes through low-density stretches of old industrial plants, grain elevators, strip commercial buildings, and residential uses. Planners selected the route mostly because the state already owned the right-of-way, acquired years ago for an expressway that was later cancelled. “It cost $715 million to build the [light-rail] system, and it costs about $16 million a year to operate it,” said John DeWitt, a founder of Transit for Livable Communities (TLC), a Minnesota transit advocacy group. Lea Schuster, executive director of TLC, said the City of Minneapolis and the Metropolitan Council have sponsored hundreds of meetings with neighborhood groups, businesses, and others, working on plans for development near stations. “Neighborhoods are beginning to understand that density is desirable” because it brings services and amenities closer, said Garner in Community Planning. During an April 29 panel discussion on transit, sponsored by Students for New Urbanism at the University of Minnesota, transportation engineer Fred Dock of Meyer Mohaddes Associates praised the city for being “very proactive in zoning overlays” and for demonstrating “a lot of interest in making TOD happen at several places along the line.” Officials are talking about possibly razing the Metrodome, perhaps as early as 2012, and building a mixed-use neighborhood on its 20 acres. Transit proponents view the Hiawatha Line as the first route in a network of light-rail lines in the Twin Cities area. A prime corridor being considered is University Avenue, which runs through the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis toward the Capitol and downtown St. Paul. How soon such a line might be approved is unclear. One more station is also expected to be built on the Hiawatha Line. It would be adjacent to a new ballpark proposed for the Minnesota Twins, on a site that Schuster described as “a giant parking lot” in the Warehouse District. The station would also serve as the terminus of the proposed Northstar commuter rail line, which would run north from Minneapolis toward Big Lake and eventually St. Cloud if funds are available. Peter Musty, who operates the Charrette Center in Minneapolis, said one refinement that needs to be made on the Hiawatha Line is to get the stations’ waiting areas “knit right into buildings.” He observed, “There are periods when people will not go outside.” Garner is confident that the operation will improve. A “tremendous maturation process” is underway as the region learns how to design around transit, he said. “We have enough developers who are interested in strong design.” u