Loring Park

As the major hub connecting Interstates 94 and 35, Eat Street, the Uptown and Wedge neighborhoods, and the downtown business district, Loring Park is a touchstone for Minneapolis.

This concentrated space provides any visitor an overview of what residents love about Minneapolis—a beautiful park and lake; a world-class museum (the Walker Art Center, which underwent an expansion starting in February 2004); historic buildings; an active business community; and hip, independent restaurants, bars, theaters, and stores.

Its residents—a mix of young professionals, retirees, and immigrants—have been active from Loring Park’s inception in guiding the neighborhood’s development, advocating for historic preservation, aesthetically pleasing housing development, revitalized green space, and affordable housing.

Cautious about Development
For the restoration of the old Eitel/Allina Hospital (Willow and 14th Streets), which broke ground in October to become a 211-unit apartment complex of six- and seven-story buildings, a task force of residents oversaw development plans. The group balked at what developers originally conceived as a forty-nine–story condo tower along the park.

“They showed up with a forty-nine–story plan when we had been talking about thirty,” says Katie Hatt, task force cochair and lifelong Loring Park resident. “Height has been a controversial issue, not just in Loring Park but throughout the city.”

A thirty-nine–story condo tower will come later, along West 14th Street between Spruce Place and LaSalle Avenue, two blocks from the park. “We didn’t want to have any buildings on the park of that height—that was very important,” Hatt says.

A Greener Greenway
The twenty-nine-year-old Loring Greenway, which connects Nicollet Mall with Loring Park, has been on a long decline, with broken pavement and many dead shrubs and trees. Last year, residents anticipated city repairs, but then heard that they were being pushed back to 2010.

“Those of us who live along [the Greenway] were not satisfied with that answer,” says Ray Harris, the developer behind Uptown’s Calhoun Square and the Loring Park Greenway Gables townhomes where he is  a resident.

Harris is one member of Citizens for a Loring Park Community (CLPC), a neighborhood group that helped get the project back on the city’s radar, with the help of 7th Ward City Council member Lisa Goodman. This month, the project will go out for bids, which means that the entire Greenway could be completely redone and finished by next fall, with more green and soft spaces, more light, and fewer paved surfaces.

Dog Haven
In the spring, Goodman hopes Loring Park residents can expect construction to begin on a new off-leash dog park, although it’s uncertain where the site will be. “We have [no dog parks],” Goodman says. “And there are arguably hundreds and hundreds of dogs downtown.”