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Bright future envisioned for Market Street
Developer tackling old power plant
Sunday, August 29, 2010
By Rebecca Mowbray
Business writer
The Market Street power plant hasn't produced electricity since 1973 and is a frequent target for graffiti artists. But if retail expert Michael Ullian is successful, the 109-year-old brick building with iconic smokestacks could become the first phase of a major retail site in time for the Super Bowl in 2013.
Ullian, co-developer of the mixed-use Midtown development in Miami who's now working on a mixed-use waterfront site in Bridgeport, Conn., hopes to put a major anchor tenant in the building along the Mississippi River and a park that would make use of the building's wharf access. Later phases would include other shops, restaurants and river view apartments that would be more geared toward the middle class than the exclusive One River Place condominiums.
Ullian, who has been hired by the management committee of Market Street Properties LLC as it reorganizes in bankruptcy to chart the course for bringing the building to commerce, says a potential anchor tenant has expressed serious interest, and he plans to start meeting with public officials shortly about his plans.
The power plant building itself has open "floor plates" of 100,000-square-feet each, and Ullian believes six to eight stories could be built within the power plant.
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"There is financing out there for a well-conceived, market-driven, phased development. That's what we anticipate," Ullian said.
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Ullian said he plans to begin meeting with public officials shortly because developing the site will take a public-private partnership that includes tax-increment financing measures to help pay for necessary road, sewer, parking and electrical upgrades. He would also like to build a police substation at the site. "Without the support of the city and state, no developer would be interested," Ullian said, adding, "We will make sure we not only have the political support, but the neighborhood support. We will not do anything that the community doesn't want."
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Ullian's work elsewhere is very promising. I'm confident that, if he can line up financing, we'll get a world-class neighborhood out of this.
The "anchor tenant" he discusses is interesting. IKEA is a possibility, but so far they've been unwilling to do challenging re-use projects for any of their American stores. (The Seattle store looks like it's in an existing one-story suburban warehouse, but that's a huge difference from trying to re-use a century-old power plant). This reluctance to re-use older buildings is part of the reason why IKEA has located in the suburbs of most major cities.
Target, however, has the same preference against existing buildings.
I'm not sure it's either of these stores. I guess if Ullian is successful, we'll hear about it soon enough.
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Originally Posted by blueingreen
Why the heck are there steps leading down to the river? So you can feed ducks? Fall into the river and drown? Can I launch my boat there?
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First off, the plan I posted is now defunct. A judge has ordered that development team to cease all work on their (competing) project, based on the fact that they don't have valid claims TO the site.
The steps, though, are just an attractive way to create a river edge. Would you rather just have sheet piling? The idea is that the park would be built on fill (or structure) that elevates the wharf about 20 feet, enough to bridge over the New Orleans Belt. The height would gradually transition down on the other side of the tracks. The idea is that people enjoy getting up close and personal with the water, which can't happen when you're 20 feet above it or stuck behind a fence.
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