Minneapolis city leaders hope to revitalize parts of downtown such as Nicollet Mall to convert old office spaces into housing, add more entertainment options and create a safety communications center in their 2035 Plan. 

The Minneapolis Downtown Council introduced its 2035 Plan which aims to improve or add housing, entertainment, pedestrian accessibility and more in the downtown area over the next 10 years. The previous 2025 plan led to the building of U.S. Bank Stadium and the opening of the light rail green line in 2014. 

Initiatives for updating Nicollet Mall include widening sidewalks to 10 feet, providing secure bike storage, a dog park, water fountains, more public seating, better public restroom access and more. 

Chief of Staff for the Minneapolis Downtown Council Ben Shardlow said he is looking forward to seeing how the 2035 Plan could expand pedestrian infrastructure and create more user-friendly systems, especially within the skyways with interactive kiosks in the skyways for easier navigation. 

“It’s been a pain point coming out of the pandemic because doors are locked and hours are irregular,” Shardlow said. “We need to kind of get it to work better as a pedestrian system, but then there’s a whole lot of opportunity that it could be.”

Minneapolis City Council Member Michael Rainville (Ward 3), who represents part of downtown, said he believes the priority of increasing housing opportunities downtown is important and doable. The 2035 Plan outlines converting three million square feet of commercial space into affordable housing and a full redesign of 1st Avenue. 

“When the 2025 plan came out, they wanted to have 50,000 people living in downtown, and at the time there was about 20,000 and people laughed. Are you crazy or are you ever going to get 50,000 people? Well now there’s 58,000 people,” Rainville said. “The 2035 Plan calls for 100,000 people living in downtown. And I think that’s just fabulous and it’s very doable.”

Improvements to downtown such as a new safety communications center that would respond to pedestrian requests, track weather and emergency news alerts, communicate with outreach services for people in need, and monitor public cameras would be highly beneficial, Shardlow said.

Shardlow said alongside the city’s partnership with Metro Transit to create a bus-free Nicollet Mall, the 2035 Plan also has a pedestrian- and resident-based focus. He said the plan calls for converting underutilized office spaces into residential housing. 

“We’ve been doing a lot of work for years on how to just really focus on people as the main source of livelihood downtown,” Shardlow said. “So how do we make sure that when people are here for whatever reason, they’re having a good experience?”

Rainville said he is also hopeful the initiatives will expand the entertainment opportunities in the Warehouse district at Hennepin to 2nd Avenue North and Washington to 8th Street will make the area and city a viable entertainment district.

Reimagining and redesigning old downtown office buildings made during the 1970s into feasible housing will be a challenge, Rainville said. 

“They’re constructed differently,” Rainville said. “They have big floor plates. They have floor-to-ceiling windows that are sealed. And they have all the plumbing on one side of the building. And those would be much, much harder, more expensive to convert into housing.”

The 2035’s four goals

Neighborhood cultivation, hassle-free systems, foundational safety and an “irresistible vibe” are the 2035 Plan’s goals for Nicollet Mall. Shardlow said the irresistible vibe goal aims to transform downtown as a center of culture, art, entertainment and people. 

“The irresistible vibe section is mainly about just understanding that we want downtown to have a magnetism to it,” Shardlow said. “We want people to want to spend time here. We want there to be a lot of reasons for people to make the trip and choose to spend time downtown.” 

Policies like the 2035 Plan are important because they not only provide a guide to make Minneapolis better, but they also bring people and organizations together, Shardlow said. He added that now is the perfect time to implement the 2035 Plan because the city is past the COVID-19 pandemic and can set more ambitious goals. 

“We know from past experience that it can be, these planning exercises, both the kind of development of the plan and then going out and implementing it is a great way to galvanize and focus energy downtown,” Shardlow said. 

Rainville said that planning the 2035 Plan around the downtown area shows how important teamwork is for creating a successful future. He said the 2025 plan succeeded by creating U.S. Bank Stadium which has brought artists like Taylor Swift and the Rolling Stones to Minneapolis. 

“Minneapolis is a city that plans. We’re a city that’s on the rise. We’ve been through a really hard time with the civil unrest in ‘20, horrific murder of George Floyd, the pandemic,” Rainville said. “It was just terrible. COVID was a real blow. We’ve suffered two big hits, and now we’re getting up off the floor and we’re succeeding.”