Embedded Files
Minneapolis' Nicollet Mall getting a redesign
Minneapolis' Nicollet Mall getting a redesign
Nicollet Mall, the iconic downtown Minneapolis commercial and cultural thoroughfare, will be getting a new look.
The city of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Downtown Council on Thursday announced the winner of a design competition to freshen up the mall, which was created along a 12-block stretch of Nicollet Avenue in the late 1960s. It was last revamped in the late 1980s and is showing signs of its age.
James Corner Field Operations, a New York-based urban design and landscape architectural firm, will redesign the mall, pending final approval by the Minneapolis City Council on Oct. 4.
The company's previous work includes New York's High Line -- an elevated railway turned into a popular linear park -- and London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
As the team begins its work on the final design, the public will have opportunities to weigh in, the city said Thursday.
Work on the project, which is expected to cost up to $40 million, is scheduled to begin in 2015 with an expected completion in 2016. Planners hope to cover half the cost in a future state bonding bill.
Source: www.twincities.com/
Design experts: Nicollet Mall
makeover has great potential
by Elizabeth Dunbar, 06.19.2013
Two University of Minnesota design experts said they hope a competition to redesign Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis leads to a makeover that will make the city famous.
The city has selected four firms as finalists to compete against each other to redesign the corridor, which city officials hope will include street cars.
The city's competition originally attracted 22 firms, said City Council member Kevin Reich.
"We certainly have generated a lot of national interest," Reich told MPR's The Daily Circuit.
Minneapolis ramping up efforts for
a re-imagined Nicollet Mall
by Karen Boros, 04.16.13
When Nicollet Mall was designed in 1965, the idea was to bring people back downtown to shop after they had been lured to the fancy, new, enclosed shopping malls in the suburbs. Downtown Nicollet Avenue became a transit mall back then, moving automobile traffic off the street and replacing cars with buses and pedestrian-friendly sidewalks.
Actress Mary Tyler Moore brought the mall into America’s living rooms weekly when she memorably tossed her hat into the air there as Mary Richards, a young television news producer, on the popular TV show.
That was almost 50 years ago, when the mall was cutting edge in design and served as a national model for transit malls.
Today the mall needs major repairs, despite being rebuilt in 1990.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse