A day after JD Vance stood in front of the burned-out Third Precinct, Minneapolis debates a plan for the police station

One day after GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance stood in front of the burned-out, shuttered Third Precinct and used it as a campaign stop prop, Minneapolis city leaders clashed over the mayor’s proposal to redevelop the former police station.

More than four years ago, protesters set the police station ablaze while protesting a Minneapolis police officer’s murder of George Floyd. Since then, the building’s future has been the subject of passionate, heated debate, with the council and Mayor Jacob Frey disagreeing over what to do with it.

Third Precinct police officers have been based out of a city building in downtown Minneapolis for three years, with plans to eventually bring them back to a south Minneapolis Community Safety Center at 2633 Minnehaha Av.

While city leaders have debated what to do with the burned-out building, some conservatives have used the vacant building as a backdrop for their argument that city leadership has failed by allowing it to stand as, in the words of Fox News host Laura Ingraham, a “monument to anarchy.” Vance followed suit, stopping in Minneapolis briefly Monday to blast Gov. Tim Walz’s handling of the 2020 riots and portray Minneapolis as a city in shambles, overrun with crime.

After Floyd’s killing and amid the pandemic, gun violence and other crimes surged in Minneapolis to record levels of shootings and homicides, but violent crime has fallen the past two years, although it’s still above pre-pandemic levels.

Frey wants to use the building at 3000 Minnehaha Av. to create a new community space and “democracy center” to relocate Elections and Voter Services, which is in a leased building at 980 E. Hennepin Av., in northeast Minneapolis. An addition would be built to store voting machines and ballots. The current elections center lease expires in 2029 and city officials hope to relocate by 2028.

City officials say the Minnehaha site would be a more centrally located election center, close to public transportation, and in an area with historically lower voter turnout.

Frey said during a Tuesday news conference that it’s time for the city to move forward, and called Vance’s actions a “bizarre and cruel way of campaigning.”

“There are many people that have had sincere conversations about what the future is for that old Third Precinct building. JD Vance is certainly not one of them,” Frey said. “But look, let’s not hand JD Vance a prop to use in a political way.”

After the City Council directed the Frey administration to engage with the community about the proposal, the city conducted two surveys, including a “demographically representative” survey that found 63% of respondents support the proposal, with 70% support among those living within the Third Precinct.

On Tuesday, City Operations Officer Margaret Anderson Kelliher said work has been done all summer inside the building on windows, elevator shafts and doors but the city had to do another request for proposals to mitigate the effects of the fire. The next steps will be that cleanup and exterior work. Then the city will seek proposals from providers to manage and operate the community space, and an architect to redesign the building.

Kelliher said funding is available for the requests for proposals and to move forward with designs, but Minneapolis City Council approval would be needed before renovations could begin. And council approval is in question, given a pair of votes the council’s Committee of the Whole took Tuesday afternoon. The full council could take up the issue again Thursday.

Some council members questioned whether the elections center could be moved to a different city-owned building, the cost of breaking the elections center current lease, and whether the addition to the building would be a “windowless warehouse.”

The committee rejected, by a vote of 6-7, a nonbinding position statement proposed by Council Members Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley supporting a city-owned, community-centered development “for the purpose of racial healing.” Chavez said it could be used to address racial disparities, homelessness, the opioid epidemic or economic development.

The committee then passed, 8-5, another nonbinding resolution by Council Members Chavez, Wonsley, and Aurin Chowdhury opposing any warehouse at the site and instead using the area for community development and racial healing.

Several council members expressed frustration at the pace of work on the exterior – particularly the still-standing jersey barriers, fencing and razor wire.

The committee vice chair, Chowdhury, said the blight and disrepair makes people feel uncared for and gives opportunists a backdrop to manipulate the scene for political gain.

Kelliher said the interior work needed to be done first to secure the building, and she agreed the razor wire needs to be removed.

Council Member Linea Palmisano said the council itself has taken several divided votes that slowed down the process of deciding what to do with the building, suggesting some members were “desperate for any objection” to the proposal.

“Enough is enough,” she said.

Council Member Andrea Jenkins agreed it was a challenging conversation, but noted the building was intentionally set ablaze.

“The building didn’t murder George Floyd; the Minneapolis police did,” Jenkins said. She agreed the council has “continuously delayed” action.