Ramsey County Project Wins Best In Real Estate
And this year’s winner - in the Redevelopment/Extensive Renovation: Large, Office/Industrial category - the Ramsey County Department of Records and Revenue! Congratulations to the Walsh Bishop project team!
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal recently presented their 2007 “Best in Real Estate” awards in downtown Minneapolis. For these awards, a panel of 10 judges chose 24 winners from hundreds of nominees. Walsh Bishop is proud to announce that our design solution for Ramsey County was honored with an award at this event!
So what was this project all about?
When the City of St. Paul targeted their existing space for a mixed-use redevelopment, Ramsey County’s Department of Records and Revenue needed to find a new home. The Walsh Bishop team was selected to transform the former home of the State of Minnesota Department of Agriculture, a vacant building in a state of disrepair, to successfully serve the Department of Records and Revenue. Through an extensive environmental audit and comprehensive redesign, Walsh Bishop converted the large lab environment into an efficient, functional, comfortable contemporary office space that now supports the department’s operations and employees, along with the general public. Our team brought an abandoned building back to life and back into the market, and developed sustainable guidelines specifically for Ramsey County that will be used to encourage and support responsible design solutions for the County for years to come.
As Ramsey County Project Manager Jerome Biedny noted, “The County certainly received long-term solutions to our design issues that exceeded our expectations.”
Porter & Frye
Porter & Frye is Minneapolis’ newest fine dining restaurant. Our design team likes to think it’s the crown jewel of the Ivy redevelopment - even if its main dining room is in the basement. Two level restaurants are never easy to operate and can often feel disconnected, but the team assembled by Walsh Bishop Senior Designer Ed Wilms knew this space had a unique opportunity.
When Wilms and Owner Jeff Laux first toured the location, it was late in the development of the overall project, but standing in what is now the elegantly sparse dining room of P&F, you would have never known. The basement was dark, oppressive and filled with water mains, piping, HVAC ductwork. What little space that was left over was consumed with tables and chairs for a makeshift break room for the construction team of the tower.
Some sort of grand stair had always been planned to the lower level, but the concept plans from earlier designs called for it in the center of the room. Not only did that place it squarely in the midst of prime steak eatin’ real estate, it also did nothing to lighten the space visually. Wilms and Laux agreed from the first moment, that the stair should be moved to the corner taking advantage of the existing structure (read cheaper) and connecting an opening in the floor with natural daylight from the street level windows and window wells (read what a wow!).
The new grand stair makes the transition from day time lunches and happy hour revelry to elegant eatery below a true ritual. Descending the stair you approach the VIP see-and-be-seen booth that sits below and cascade of glass chandeliers. Custom designed oval dining booths offer privacy for dinner conversation - yet still let you survey the entire dining room. Metallic shear draperies allow the room to be divided into small rooms for private parties.
And to top it all off, Chef Steven Brown is making some of the most interesting and accessible food this side of the Mississippi.
Mix New American Diner, Chaska, MN
Mix New American Diner is scheduled to open next month, and frankly we couldn’t be happier about it. The dream of award-winning Chef John Pullis and wife Joan Howe-Pullis, it’s the culmination of years of hard work and planning behind the scenes.
It takes enormous effort and lots of talent to organize a small independent restaurant. Creating the concept, finding an architect, finding a builder, dealing with the bank, the city, the state, hiring staff and training them. And that’s if things go smoothly.
Walsh Bishop Design Leader Ed Wilms started conversations with John and Joan in 2005 about another concept that was also an outgrowth of their northeastern roots, but as fate would have it, that concept never came to fruition. In 2007 the duo found us again and we started planning Mix New American Diner. Our first meeting was filled with sketches, plans and concepts from an owner that had already put a tremendous amount of consideration into the look, feel and charm of the restaurant they wanted to create.
So far so good.
Start Construction and open up an almost 100 year old building and it’s full of surprises. Three original store front buildings were combined to create Mix, and of course not one floor level was the same. Open up the walls? Rot from bad additions and remodels that had happened over they years - water being funneled down from the ice dams on the roof creating mold problems, and walls that were quite frankly, barley standing up.
Working with longtime collaborators Zeman Construction, Walsh Bishop was able to help the owners navigate their way through the unexpected twists and turns of a very difficult construction. Hard decisions needed to be made because the pot isn’t full of money. Structural deficiencies need to be addressed, floors leveled, leaking roofs repaired and freezers refrozen. These hidden conditions of course weren’t accounted for in the original budget.
But, that’s behind us, and the end is in sight. Mix New American Diner is scheduled to open in just a few weeks, and as we’ve said before, we couldn’t be happier.
Mix New American Diner offers a menu full of unique twist on classic diner fare along with new additions that you can’t find anywhere else. A full bar complements the inviting atmosphere.
UPDATE: Check out Mix in the Star Tribune!
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/taste/20398854.html?page=3&c=y
Varsity Theater Project Update
When the Varsity Theater opened in 1915 as a vaudeville showplace near the campus of the University of Minnesota, no one could have known that 90 years later it would still house live performances and that in fact - it is the premier boutique venue for musical performance in the country – gaining rave reviews from performing artists and concert attendees alike.
The road to success was not without pitfalls and it’s only by shear determination and a relentless vision from Owner Jason McLean and Walsh Bishop Design Lead Ed Wilms that the Theater continues to delight audiences.
The rise of movies and vaudeville’s decline saw the theater’s conversion to a movie house in 1939 after an extensive redesign by the Minneapolis architecture and design firm Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Operating as a movie theater well into the 1980’s, the landmark Art Moderne marquee went dark after a failed attempt to convert it into a nightclub. An unfortunate renovation in the early Nineties gutted the auditorium to make way for a photographer’s studio, and ultimately left it sitting empty for several years.
McLean and Wilms knew they had found something special when they first viewed the empty shell – and McLean’s vision for the “Varsity Theater and Cafe des Artistes” was born. The goal was to create a flexible space that could house an art exhibit one day, a rock performance the next – and a wedding on Saturday. That vision is now a reality and an economic engine for the community. Renovation plans are again underway to take the theater’s capacity from 300 to 900 with expanded bar and catering facilities which will be completed Summer 2008.
Several years before their collaboration at the Varsity Theater, McLean and Wilms had incredible success renovating the old Grey’s Campus Drug Store into the now vibrant Loring Pasta Bar, transforming a dilapidated building into a destination restaurant and revitalizing a neighborhood.
2008 Skyway Open Recap
You may have seen or heard about this year’s Skyway Open golf tournament in Minneapolis, which took place February 29th and March 1st in the downtown skyway system based around the City Center. The Walsh Bishop design team decided to throw its hat into the ring for the second time for this event, which asks local architects to design holes for the course reflecting a specific theme. This year it was “Minneapolis 2050″.
Our design intent was to illustrate the different sustainable choices that we have as Minneapolis residents, and how these choices shape the environment in which we live. If the player didn’t make the sustainable choice, the ball would be sent back to the tee box to start again!
The graphic on our design used images relating to environmentally responsible energy, transportation, and housing options, and created a “path” to our hole with those choices. Also in the graphic were many images of our city- real images that we could recognize and be proud of- showing our personality and how the sustainable goals are woven into it.
We chose to construct our hole out of clear acrylic, in sections that were portable and easy to assemble. The vision really came together after long planning sessions, and when we set up the hole to test it in our office, it was working great! It was really fun- the ball moved fast on the acrylic, so the players needed a controlled hand.
During the tournament the hole looked slick and people had a good time playing it- the design was unique and folks really wanted to see what was going on when they walked by. Unfortunately, a player did try to walk onto the playing surface… right next to the sign that read “Please Do Not Walk on the Playing Surface”, and the frame of the hole cracked. Alas, it was fun while it lasted! We were proud to have the opportunity to participate in the event.
The Skyway Open tournament is hosted by the Downtown Council, and benefits the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities. Look for the 3rd Annual tournament next year!
