Mayor Frey’s latest plan has ‘action steps’ to revitalize downtown Minneapolis

Minneapolis knows it needs to make changes to re-energize downtown — it just doesn’t know exactly how yet.

Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday unveiled a list of strategies aimed at revitalizing downtown, but the city’s 18-page plan indicates that determining the future of hallmark corridors and neighborhoods like Nicollet Mall and the Warehouse District will likely take several years and millions of dollars.

Frey intimated he is serious about this newly revealed Downtown Action Plan.

“This downtown action plan is not just about creating some binder that sits on the shelf,” the mayor said during a news conference with a dozen public- and private-sector downtown leaders flanking him. “It’s creating action steps.”

It is the latest in a string of strategic plans for the urban core to recover from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, a challenge downtowns across the country are facing after the rapid rise of remote work.

“This plan is not about getting back to the old normal,” Frey said. “It’s about blowing by the old normal to see a true change in how we do business downtown, who benefits from downtown, and who uses it.”

The Minneapolis Foundation published a report late last year presenting a number of similar strategies to transform the city’s central business district. SEIU Local 26 followed with a vision for downtown Minneapolis centered on downtown service workers, released early this year.

The Downtown Council and Meet Minneapolis will also soon release their own visions for the city’s future. Adam Duininck, the Downtown Council’s CEO, said he doesn’t see the plans as competing, just more of a divide-and-conquer mentality.

“Even though there’s a lot of energy, creativity and hard work going on around downtown, never have we been more aligned in the direction we’re heading,” Duininck said.

To execute its plan, the city is convening a Downtown Action Council, a group that consists of representatives from the business, nonprofit and government sectors, including the Minnesota Vikings, Target and the Guthrie Theater.

A top priority for the group, from July 2024 to 2026, will be helping figure out the long-awaited transformation of Nicollet Mall into a pedestrian-only corridor. A task force Frey convened called the Vibrant Downtown Storefronts Workgroup made that suggestion and others for the thoroughfare in June 2023. The city and its partners will have to determine where to move bus traffic and stops, but Frey said Marquette and Second avenues are ripe for that transition.

The plan would also focus time and resources on downtown’s Warehouse District, which Frey said “has the potential to be an entertainment mecca.” The blocks between the North Loop and the central business district could have a social district that allows open containers, billboards and lights that help attract visitors from around the state.

“I’m not arguing that the Warehouse District is going to be like Times Square,” Frey said. “But I am arguing that we can create our own version of it right here in Minneapolis.”

Officials also emphasized efforts to make it easier for developers to convert downtown office buildings to housing and other uses. Frey touted the city’s Vibrant Storefronts initiative, which has been connecting property owners with vacant storefronts to local artists.

“When I look at these issues, none of them are going to be turned around in a hot second,” said Sarah Anderson, a member of the new council and president and CEO of Building Owners and Managers Association Greater Minneapolis. “This takes time. It takes a good, thoughtful process.”