Farmpeddlar1 forwarded some photos of the demolition at a building he identified as 2110 West Broadway right about the same moment I swung by and took some of my own photos of the demolition, because Northside demolition attracts me like a moth to flame. (ADDENDUM, the building has now been positively identified as 2101 West Broadway, not 2110 as was previously reported to me. This blog post is being quickly corrected. THANK YOU READERS for the help)
Farmpeddlar identifies the building as "Snow Foods" but a friend of mine said it was "Broadway Rentals." The large, sprawling commercial building with multiple sections visible is clearly big enough and ancient enough to have a complex history and to be the location of numerous former businesses, collective memory of those things now more permanent than the building itself...
At the point I saw the building being demolished, no address or business name was visible on what was left of the exterior. And this isn't my part of the neighborhood.
This blog post is trying to document SOMETHING but mostly I'm documenting pictures of the Backhoe Of Doom in action. WHAT was there? WHAT is going to BE there?
This is the blogosphere at its finest, folks. SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT IS HAPPENING WHICH WILL IMPACT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD and we have a few pieces of information and some photos. We will go with what we have and hope more turns up because we're the only media local enough and speedy enough to give a damn right now.
I've heard there is discussion of an "arts and theater node" in that area. This is a MASSIVE demolition project and so I would tend to think somebody has a fairly good idea about putting something else into this area, but, well, WHAT?
In the meantime, here are more photos, including one I shot of the "mural of short duration" courtesy of Juxtaposition Arts. The letters say in the mural say "Minneapolis" and the image is of a city skyline intertwined with the letters. Hopefully somebody else got better photos of the mural; I had a dead camera battery and so used my cell phone as a back up from across the street but hey; I'm still the only media that gave a damn.
Above 2 photos byFarmpeddlar1, bottom photo by John Hoff
5 comments:
The address of this demolition is *2101* West Broadway. It's the former Broadway Rental building.
2110 is across the street where Anytime Fitness is building out their new space.
Everything I can find points to reuse of the land as a parking lot for the Capri Theater/PCYC complex. There are several documents backing up this plan going back to 2008 on the Mpls web site.
That space was a super market back in the day. I brought Aunt Eliz there to shop
Prior to the 1980s this was Country Club Market, the last "full service" grocery store on Broadway prior to Cub (I'm not counting Sullivan's for obvious reasons). They had better prices and "atmosphere" than did their main competitor, Super Valu, located where the CVS Pharmacy now sits.
Most of upper Broadway is slowly turning from derelict buildings into parking lot and "green space", as it is currently considered a commercial dead-zone. This won't change until commuters are not afraid to get out of their cars as they motor through.
Here is some information posted by Councilman Gary Schiff on the North Talk FB forum.
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Here's the info my office received from Kristen Guild in Community Planning and Economic Development: The City owns the land and is attempting to acquire the rest of the block for redevelopment. No specific redevelopment plans have been set. The building was to remain while the redevelopment plans were made, but the building was damaged in the tornado, so the city is using a FEMA grant to take the structure down.
The pedestrian overlay zoning district in place would prohibit the use of the land as a surface parking lot, but a temporary interim use permit for surface parking while redevelopment plans are decided is a potential if the community asks for it.
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