Since closing its doors in 2020, the Kmart on Lake Street has been a 10-acre sea of parking spaces, half-hanging red letters, and abandoned shopping carts. And for the residents in its Uptown neighborhood, it’s been a subject of conversation for years. With the plot disconnecting the northern and southern running streets in one of Minneapolis’s most popular hubs, the site of the former shopping center has broken apart access to bus routes, the Greenway, and the overall ability to quickly get from point A to point B between Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue, one of Minneapolis’s most popular transportation zones.
Shortly after the Lake Street Kmart’s foreclosure in 2020, the city of Minneapolis purchased the land with the intent to take the cement acreage to bigger and better heights. Now, nearly two years later, Minneapolis’s Community Planning and Economic Development team wants the community’s help in deciding the land’s new fate.
Community members and business owners can take an online survey offered through the city of Minneapolis’s website, where they can share their thoughts on what the area should become and how it can better serve the neighborhood. The goal of the project is to simultaneously restore the street grid between Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue, while also improving the quality of life for local residents in the Uptown area.
“The city of Minneapolis has a long history in how we’ve developed through our engagement with the community,” says Rebecca Parrell, one of the leaders in the New Nicollet Redevelopment, the project dedicated to redesigning the area. “And through getting the community involved, we’re trying to find out about how specifically the community currently functions in that area. What they see as challenges, what they see as assets, and how we can capitalize on those as we move forward.”
The first phase of the New Nicollet Redevelopment, deemed the Characteristics of Success, focuses on getting the Minneapolis community involved in the project itself. In addition to the survey, which runs until November 30, the group will host an open house at the Abyssinia Cultural Center, just a few blocks away from the former Kmart site, on October 25 from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
“I think it’s worth saying that there are different viewpoints,” Parrell says. “There are people who are really interested in supporting small, local businesses, while there are other folks interested in being able to have art or format stores that have the ability to provide a greater variety of low cost goods and services and groceries.”
At the heart of the redevelopment project, Parrell says balance is key. She explains that the future of the site is going to do its best to optimize the Characteristics of Success determined in the first phase of the New Nicollet Redevelopment, while aiming to promote the goods and services needed in the area when the design of the future space takes place in phase two. The actual demolition of the Kmart building and the area’s remodel will occur in phase three.
Although the project isn’t expected to be near completion until the end of 2023, a few things are certain: The new space will be greener, taller, and more convenient for locals. Parrell explains that the building will most likely include storefronts offering access to both Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue on street level, multiple stories of apartments offering new housing for the area located above, and lots of greenery added to the land to provide shade in the summer and to create a more welcoming environment, overall.
“At the end of the day, 10 acres of land can’t solve all of the challenges that we’re faced with,” Parrell says. “But we have to try to do our best to listen and prioritize what we’re hearing from the community. We’re going to do our best to meet the needs of the folks that are there.”