[Ecker]

I went to the Stevens Square Community Organization Housing and Development meeting tonight where the developer and architect made a presentation to the neighborhood association regarding the City of Lakes tower. It was pretty fun. There were about twenty people at the meeting and only two spoke in favor of the tower (I was one of them).

They presented color renderings of both the low-rise and high-rise portions of the project. Unfortunately, I'm an idiot and forgot to bring my camera. Sorry guys!

From what I gathered, there was a previous meeting where the developer proposed demolishing Abbot Hospital and the City of Lakes building that fronts 18th Street and replacing them with a five-story building that would ring the property. There was no tower component. The consensus at that meeting was that the neighborhood wanted to save Abbot Hospital.

So now the current proposal is as follows:

- The low-rise portion is reduced from five stories to four, in order to keep consistent the context of the surronding 3.5 story buildings.

- Save/rebuild Abbot Hospital and turn it into 12 condos. (I thought this part was really well done.)

- A 23-story, 199-unit tower that has a base of four stories that is similar to the other low-rise portions. (Pre-cast concrete, but pretty glassy.)

- All parking spaces are undergound.

- Neither the developer or architect mentioned it, but from the maps they showed, it looks like they might be calling this project "Fusion" now.

Needless to say, most of the neighbors were pissed about the tower. They were ready to allow the Abbot building to be demolished, so the developer could recoup his investment without having to build the tower.

Amoung the ridiculous arguments raised against the tower:

- It's a monstrosity! (Name-calling seems counter-productive.)

- The additional cars cause a pollution problem. (Pollution? This thing is 100 feet from I-94/I-35W!)

- Residents won't park in their in their heated, reserved, secure, sealed-from-the-elements garage space that is twenty feet from the building's elevator....instead they'll park their cars on the street where it's more convenient and take up all our parking spaces! (Okay, so I embellished this one with editorial comments).

- It's in a historical preservation district. (Maybe not ridiculous, but I think it's neither here nor there since the tower would replace a parking lot. Do you want the lot preserved? It either stays a parking lot or becomes the site of a 21st-century building.)

Anyway, sorry if this is way too long to keep your attention. I needed to vent.

I think this project would be a great catalyst for redevelopment of that stretch of Nicollet Avenue.