Loring Park

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.”
Nicollet Avenue Development
Loring Park residents should also know more in 2007 on the potential development of an empty city-owned block at 15th Street and Nicollet Avenue. Hatt says the city solicited input from CLPC in creating request-for-proposal guidelines. On the table are four different mixed-use proposals:

-29-story combination luxury hotel/artist studio space
-Apartment of market-rate and affordable units
-Nonprofit office space and community center combined with housing for people with HIV/AIDS
-Housing complex that would offer home ownership opportunities at affordable rates

Hatt’s committee was excited and impressed by the quality of all the proposals. The HIV housing and the hotel/artist studio space projects have gotten especially positive feedback from the community so far, she says, noting that there will be more citizen, business, and city input before a project is chosen. Hatt says the level of input the city expected from residents was wonderful.

“If we allow market forces alone to shape our development, we won’t see a wide spectrum of housing options that keep Loring Park a place where everybody can come in,” she says.

Hometown Grocery
Although the promised Lunds at 12th Street and Hennepin was still in planning when this issue went to press, no one is more excited about it than Goodman, who will live next door and plans to drop by every morning “in my PJs” for her newspaper and muffin. Goodman has been one of many downtown residents advocating for years for a grocery store to come downtown.

“These things happen because of really committed people in our community,” Goodman says. “Architects, developers, designers, real estate investment trusts, pension funds, community developers, neighborhood associations. Everyone is so interconnected and focused on working together really well.”