How Minneapolis can get its groove back

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With once-bustling downtown listing from pandemic-effects and safety concerns, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey last year named 20 business and civic leaders to come up with ideas to revive things. Its underwhelming report landed with a clank.

Two "big" takeaways: Make Nicollet Mall pedestrian-only, and amend liquor laws so folks can sip 'n stroll the street. That's about it, other than high-sounding "think about" things.

Like downtowns everywhere, ours suffers a dearth of foot traffic, with remote work emptying offices and an overblown safety fear (despite downtown's steady population growth and positive resident experiences). But the lingering perception places urgency on the city's struggling Public Safety Initiative.

There were glints of doubt when the mayor's work group was appointed. Twin Cities Business editor Allison Kaplan wrote that the group was "stacked with many of the same downtown stakeholders who've been stymied by lack of momentum for years." No one from the city's stable of creative advertising firms, Kaplan noted, or young entrepreneurs who "know how to draw a crowd."

"Downtowns are no longer central business districts," said urbanist Richard Florida at the University of Toronto. "They're centers of innovation, entertainment and recreation, and the faster downtowns realize that, the better."

It's already realized in the North Loop, whose buzz is replacing Nicollet Mall as the excitement center. Nationally, Los Angeles and Austin, Tex., have lured visitors through emphasis on entertainment.

Our downtown has quality restaurants, fun nightspots and entertainment. Its impressive glassed buildings are linked by comfortable skyways above spacious sidewalks. In all, downtown is pleasant and very walkable.

Too, there are abundant services for its steadily expanding population, with still more coming as vacant offices convert to residential.

Minneapolis has been challenged before. Starting in the 1960s, determined civic leaders successfully enticed corporations to an aging city core, transforming downtown into a center of commerce and culture. Handsome, tall buildings, including the 57-story IDS Center (1973), housed hordes of office workers to support retail, anchored by homegrown Dayton's, Donaldson's and Young-Quinlan.

The Guthrie Theater joined the city's classy collection of stages. Orchestra Hall, Peavey Plaza, the Sculpture Garden and other cultural and sports amenities added allure. The defining attraction was Nicollet Mall (1967), the nation's first pedestrian-transitway.

There's genuine opportunity here to leverage the city's many elements of vitality into a destination of excitement, as the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust has done for that city. Transforming our downtown would be ambitious, a task best suited for a team of urbanists with wide-eyed imagination.

Yes, get buses off Nicollet Mall, but also those parked police cars that fester safety skittishness (foot and bike patrols are effective and, like the approachable Downtown Improvement District Ambassadors, welcoming).

A well-lit Mall would invite into the night, as would bright side streets to, and up and down, Hennepin and Marquette.

Consider a Mall canopy with dazzling digital displays like Las Vegas's Fremont Street. Provide stages for street performers and welcome colorful ethnic celebrations. Install pop-ups for specialty retail and promote regular events like the "First Fridays" that showcase local art in Kansas City and Denver. Columbus, Ohio, annually hosts more than 200 popular events.

A revived Taste of Minnesota is a welcome big event downtown, where Holidazzle must return, spiced with European-style vendor pizazz. Get the Farmers Market back, this time in permanent "wow" space (Seattle's long-running "Pike Place Market" annually draws millions).

Small hop-on/off, narrow-gauge trolleys would be fun people movers, and a draw like San Francisco's cable cars, Portland's streetcars and those newly revived in El Paso, Tex.

Wichita, Kan., and Charleston, S.C., have converted one-way streets to two-way, seen as safer by slowing traffic, especially those racing to beat a light.

Consider an e-center with video games, pocket billiards, bowling and putt-putt golf, bounded by casual eateries. How about pickleball, half-court basketball, bocce and curling facilities, with regular tournaments?

Maybe a roof-to-roof zipline, at least one stringing the Mississippi River as during the cold-defying downtown excitement of 2018's Super Bowl.

Add a fun kids' place as a shopper amenity, combined with affordable day-care for office workers.

A towering Ferris wheel would pierce the skyline with an invite to a breathtaking ride, à la Chicago and London, and a draw like Seattle's Space Needle and the St. Louis Arch.

Get on with removing Ford Dam to restore rapids through the Mississippi River's gorge, from Stone Arch to Fort Snelling. It'd make ours the world's only major city with miles-long, white-water rapids to challenge kayakers, with fish swarming in clear eddy-pools and raptors soaring above hikers.

Cost? Well, the city has three ungodly expensive, taxpayer-supported sports stadiums, used but a few days and, despite puffy claims, with limited economic benefit (unless Taylor Swift would return regularly).

Downtown's civic leaders must again step up, this time to support urban designers brimming with innovation to create a vibrant downtown that'd give folks a smorgasbord of reasons to visit, often.

Ron Way lives in Minneapolis and is at ron-way@comcast.net.