Zoning Matters: 18th Avenue NE and Central Avenue
Current zoning codes in Minneapolis unnecessarily prevent small businesses from being more walkable and accessible — part of the neighborhood fabric.
Tag Archives: northeast minneapolis
Single-Family Home Solar or Apartment Development: Which Is Better for the Climate?
One neighbor of a proposed apartment development says that it would block their access to sunlight for solar energy, but getting more people to live in our cities is the more important climate goal.
Minneapolis 2040’s First Real Test: 635 Van Buren Street NE
The Minneapolis 2040 Plan was a true accomplishment and vision for more housing, reducing inequity and improving sustainability. It set the stage for many other cities and states across the country to push for and succeed in adopting new, denser zoning laws. For the first time since its 12-1 passage, that Plan is now being […]
Getting To School By 5th Street NE On Bikes
By my count there are six schools on or one block off of Jefferson Street in Northeast Minneapolis. From the trail at 18th Avenue NE to 4th Avenue SE, there’s Spero Academy/Heartwood Montessori, Sheridan Elementary, Webster Elementary, Aveda Institute, Marcy Open School, and the University of Minnesota. 5th Street NE is a bicycle boulevard and […]
Complete Streets in Action
We have all driven, biked, or walked down a street that appeared wider than the traffic it served. Extra space proliferates within the area for vehicles while the pedestrian and bicyclist are forced onto a small, cracked sidewalk or into the street dodging parked cars. We constantly wonder why the road could not be redesigned […]
I Love the Traveling Tap, and You Should Too
I rode the Traveling Tap and it was incredible. The Traveling Tap is one of those beer bikes that Minnesotans love to hate. I myself was a card carrying member of the “I hate the Pedal Pub” Facebook group for some time. No longer. Never has a finer vehicle been created than the Bar Bicycle. […]
Dear Mortenson: Please Don’t Name an Apartment Building YOLO
Like many of you, I regularly lurk on the streets.mn forums to stay current on development news around Minneapolis and Saint Paul. This past Monday (April 17th), one of the big development stories of the day was the unveiling of updated designs for a new apartment tower being considered at 333 Hennepin Ave E. […]
Tripping all the way to Target
My phone dinged insistently. It was the Target CVS pharmacy, texting me yet again to come pick up my prescription. I had been avoiding this trip all week because it required going to the big box store capital of Northeast Minneapolis, the Quarry. Rather than face the prospect of traversing the enormous parking lot by […]
Something Brewing in Northeast: A Mistake at Hennepin and Central
Just earlier this year the East Isles neighborhood endured the gut-wrenching disappointment of watching the proposal for a new Walgreens along Hennepin Avenue in south Minneapolis get approval. The project stirred up a lot of debate about what belongs in urban corridors and how suburban-style single story drive-thru commercial impacts the areas of Minneapolis with […]
NIEBNA, Old St. Anthony, CenHen: An Exercise to Name a Nameless Place
Some of the greatest places have some of the greatest names. The Grand Canyon is fairly self-explanatory–it’s a canyon, and it is rather grand. Coney Island, with its imagination-inducing name referring to an isolated floating group of processed meats, juxtaposes the lighthearted, artificially-flavored entertainment district in New York. Then again, some great places have ambiguous names, barely describing the locales geography in […]