etimer13

With two of the major investors sitting on the Vanderbilt Board of Trust, it's looking more and more like a combined MLS/VU Football stadium at the Fairgrounds. As a fan of both, MLS and VU, this will be very disappointing to me.

The native flowers/grasses under Stix are looking really nice at the moment. They are finally mature enough to blend with the sculpture and over the last couple of days have helped me to have a better appreciation for the Native American inspiration for the piece.

The survey made it sound like alcohol sales inside the stadium might be limited to a Club area for Vandy games.

You just can't help yourself, can you?

The Vanderbilt survey that went out was specifically focused on a shared stadium at the Fairgrounds. It was basically a series of questions asking, "if we give you these great amenities would you be willing to go to games at an off-campus stadium at the Fairgrounds". Reaction among VU fans is very mixed.

12 Units full of bachelorette/bachelor parties with no onsite manager. Train noise will be the last thing to worry about.

I would love to be able to visit my family in Cuba with nonstop service, but I'm thinking San Juan is more likely.

From the article: "Barry's preliminary plan includes long-needed upgrades to the Fairgrounds Speedway, while leaving existing facilities at the 117-acre, Metro-owned site. It would further accelerate a makeover in the works for the fairgrounds, where new recreational soccer fields are slated."

Mad Donna's is currently at 1313 Woodland. The article says that a new restaurant will take over the Mad Donna's space.

Yes. It was still there in the mid-80's. Convenient for those of us who lived in Kissam Quad.

In its gay bar days (1980-2005) the Standard/Savage House was called the Gaslight Lounge. The last of the "downtown" gay bars.

The Capitol View website still mentions that this development will have downtown's first real grocery store. Is this still happening with the Whole Foods going in 1/2 mile away?

8 of the 27 poles have been installed as of this morning

Interesting, in terms of height/floor ratio, the world's tallest Holiday Inn has opened in NYC. The new Holiday Inn stands 453 feet tall. It has 50 stories and 492 rooms.

Well, the Springhill Suites/Residence Inn should open in December 2014 and the Hilton Garden Inn should be open before 2016. The Fairfield Inn just opened in the Gulch.

That's a great site. Thanks for sharing. I love the Flaming Steer on West End at 19th.

Map is available on the MTA website under Fall 2014 Service Changes. Basically the green route now turns north on 5th and goes up to Sulphur Dell and comes back down 5th, then heads west on Demonbreun.

I was in Minneapolis/St. Paul last weekend and used the green line to get to the Twins game from our hotel in downtown St. Paul. It's clean and efficient and what I liked most was that the trains are very frequent (every 10 minutes) during the day on weekends. This was helpful because the ticket kiosk was out of commission at the 10th st. station where we boarded, so we rode ticketless, but jumped off at the next stop, used that kiosk and waited for the next train. Between the two downtowns the train passes very close to some big-box shopping stores and it looked as if Target had created a pedestrian friendly route from the train stop through their parking lot to make using the train for shopping trips that much easier. The train also has a stop at the University of Minnesota's football stadium. It's hard to feel good about the AMP after using that service, but I recognize that MSP was in a unique situation being able to connect two downtown areas, a university, an NFL stadium (now under construction) and an MLB park.

Are we certain that the property at West End and 18th is still a Residence Inn/Springhill Suites? I had brunch at the Hutton Hotel on Sunday and was told by an employee that Marriott had pulled out of the project.

There are certainly pockets of development north of Douglas. I've lived near Riverside Village for the last 7 years and the change to that area has been similar to what I experienced living near 5 Points from 2000-2006. The demand for houses in Inglewood is very strong. I have 3 different friends, all around 30-years-old, who have had a terrible time buying a house in the area over the last 6 months. Every house they've seen has had multiple offers on the day of listing and all have sold above asking price, many to developers/investors.

This is from the Vanderbilt press release: "All of the coal infrastructure also will be removed, including the three-story bag house, which serves as a filtering system, and the smoke stack, coal hoppers and coal silo."

CandyAisles photograph reminds me that Vanderbilt announced this week that it will convert from coal to natural gas. The conversion will start this Fall and will result in the loss of the great smokestack seen in this photo.