The Downtown Journal is reporting that the several stakeholders are investigating the feasiblity of building a new park in central business district area of Minneapolis, on a location adjacent to the new Central Library.
- Article: Central Library might be joined by new park (Downtown Journal)
The Central Library is currently surrounded by several large parking lots (on 2 sides and diagonally from the the Library), Hennepin Avenue, and an office building. The light rail station is located one block south of the library on the corner of Fifth street and Nicollet Avenue.
I could not clearly identify which block was being targeted for a potential park (it looks like either is in play?)
The article does identify some of the players and supporters of the project. The article explains that the Mayor and Ray Harris (developer of Calhoun Square, I believe) both back the project, in an effort to create a more walkable downtown. The project has brought in Daniel Biederman of the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation for some advice and Hammel, Green and Abrahamson Inc., has provided pro-bono services to produce renderings of a new park.
HGA designer Nick Potts used New York’s Bryant Park as inspiration for the design, which could include a caf/ or “open canvas” lawn for seasonal events. A series of layered spaces would buffer park-goers from the street. A park near the library would likely intersect with the mayor’s vision for a pedestrian-friendly Washington Boulevard, as well as developer Ray Harris’ plans to develop new walkways Downtown.
Related posts on this site:
- Link: The Gross Report on What Makes a Place a Public Space?
- Architecture by Design - It's Hard to Get Fresh Air at Block E
- Are There Great Public Spaces in Minneapolis?
- The Best Place in My City
- Peavy Plaza: One of the Best Public Spaces in Minneapolis?
Filed under Urban Design, Public Spaces, Community Planning with 17 Comments
|17 Responses to “A New Downtown Park for Minneapolis?”
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October 26th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Ok, this looks really cool! I hope that the city pays particular attention to the advice given by Biederman, including:
-Using BID funds to supplement the work. This relieves taxpayers of some of the expense, and encourages local businesses to take responsibility for their neighborhood.
-Having clear sightlines. Basically, this means that there aren't any fully-obscured portions of the park. The park is a public space, not a private one; it works best when the principle of visibility is preserved. To see and to be seen is the essence of a public space.
-Providing public restrooms. Great idea! Why is it that America, generally speaking, doesn't provide this service? It makes it much more practical if you want to use the venue for larger gatherings.
-Providing security. This one, unfortunately, ends up costing you the most. It's great if it works, though.
The main concern, as I understand it, is making sure that the park doesn't become a magnet for homeless people. Minneapolis has its share, does it not? And while I encourage government to take an active hand in helping them, the park won't work if it becomes a quasi-shelter.
–Steve (http://grossreport.blogspot.com)
October 26th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
The idea of adding parks to downtown Minneapolis would be such an improvement. Even though the land is very valuable, there is a warmth added to a city with small parks available for the downtown populace.
October 27th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
I also think this is a wonderful idea. Downtown Minneapolis needs a good public space and this is an ideal location for it. It is located near transit and it will draw people towards the new library area.
I also understand that the land is valuable, but so is good public space!
Great suggestions Steve. One item I would add. Make sure there are multiple uses / activities either in the space or nearby the space, so it attracts people to the space. There is a great base to start with, between the transit and the library. What are some additional uses that would complement these uses in the downtown area? How can they build off of each other in order to create a more dynamic (and used) space?
October 27th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
This makes me think of something else that's been in the back of my mind for a while. Why don't more U.S. cities have squares? Very common in European cities - big expanses of cobblestones with benches, fountains, and, of course, heroic sculptures. Sidewalk cafes can sort of spill out into them. These can be more inviting in some respects than a park - more space filled with people rather than shrubs. And they have a very different aesthetic impact than a park - provide openness in contrast to the claustrophobic feeling of tall buildings and narrow streets. They are the opposite of density. An ideal square should be hemmed in by large buildings - preferably important buildings - to add to the contrast. Maybe this is what we need in this space rather than a park.
October 28th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
You'll find the squares in the US generally fall in the cities that were planned (or grew) before cars. The reason that we have so few is that transportation has been the dominant theme of our american building experience. In this context, a square, would only really work if you were able to block streets on at least a couple of sides to connect the space to the sorts of uses that make squares sucessful (like the ones that you pointed out.) If you've got to cross a street to get to a square it won't usually work out.
October 30th, 2006 at 5:19 am
I've seen the square work well when surrounded on all four sides with traffic. It is a fairly common element in many midwestern cities (the old town square), zocalos, etc.
… but I would entirely prefer going to place without having to cross several lanes of traffic.
My feeling is that the quality of the experience should be the first priority with many of the elements that Brenden and Stephen descibe like having "the right things there", a good view and interesting landscape, and protection from things like wind, crime and… traffic noise.
I think you could have both in a new space in Minneapolis (high quality experience and a car-free pathway to the space) because Nicollet Avenue is almost bus-only already. Maybe someday it may even be trains-only, which would work even better in the space.
October 30th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Hi folks… I was writing some thoughts on the origins of public spaces, but the post was getting pretty long. If you realy want to learn more that you needed to know about where public squares come from, the post just went up:
http://grossreport.blogspot.co.....ughts.html
Later,
–Steve
October 30th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Always a pleasure to post a comment and get some replies! Anyway, I like where Zack K is going. The 2 spots identified for the "space" (park, square, etc) border on Nicollet Avenue, so will have no more than 3 street borders. Of course, ideally more streets borders could be eliminated, but I'm probably pushing it.
But am I? If we're really serious about creating a walkable city, it means blocking more and more streets to traffic. Nicollet Ave is a good start, and could be greatly improved by connecting it to some spaces like the one being proposed here, and possibly even blocking off some of the connecting streets. Its a trade-off that would impact traffic, but are we serious about creating a city for people or not?
By the way, wouldn't it be nice if we could just eliminate ALL traffic from Nicollet Ave? Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of eliminating cars from a street if you allow loud exhaust-spewing diesel buses to remain? Even trains, sorry, should go somewhere other then the pedestrian street. The city did a pilot study where they re-routed buses off of Nicollet Ave. I only heard about it, didn't read it, but if the results were good this should be made permanent. Can't we have one true pedestrian street in the whole downtown?
Stephen - good points. Why not create a permanent site for the Nicollet Ave. Farmers Market in this new "space"?
November 1st, 2006 at 9:47 pm
I'm pretty sure that there used to be a park on site #1, a park called "bridge square," back before the (ill-fated) Gateway redevelopment of the 60's.
It'd be neat to remake that site back into a focus point for the city, and start to bring Nicollet Avenue back towards the river.
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:10 am
I realize that there are a few squares here and there that do have traffic on all sides and still work, Coply in Boston is one good example, however, I still believe that it is much more difficult to make a good, working square without having at least one side connected to the surroundings, especially in a city with wide streets and cars moving 35 miles per hour, even downtown. Perhaps you could give some example of the old town square in the midwest. I know the cities out there pretty well and I can't think of any squares that really work all that well (other than visually).
As you point out, Latin America does have some other good examples (as do most cities planned on millitary patterns), but urban patterns in Latin America are very different. Minneapolis has much higher barriers to having successful urban space. A park might be preferable to parking lots (visually at least), but it'll have a long way to go to really be a sucess in this location. Even with the library, there isn't much there besides office space. The park would need to be able to draw people there on it's own merit, and that's tough for a park that is only a block big.
We can also look at Rice Park in St. Paul. It's a nice space with interesting institutional buildings around the edges, but for the most part it's dead almost all the time. That's not a sucessful space.
I think for this to really work well, they would need to pedestrianize Nicollet (it's not that far down, right?). It would also help to restrict traffic on the streets (as opposed to aves) going by by restricting the width. Additionally, cafes, resturants, clubs, hotel and retail would help. Moving the farmers market down there (as suggested) would also be a great idea. But honestly, I think this project in Minneapolis will at most be a partial sucess.
November 5th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean, exactly, when you say most successful urban plazas / parks are not surrounded by traffic on all sides (or alternately, if there is traffic on all sides, it is less likely the place will be successful).
When I think about some of my favorite urban parks / plazas most of them seem to have traffic on all sides. I'm thinking of Washington Square Park, Union Square, Dupont Circle. I think all of these fit into the mold of being about a block or two large with traffic surrounding on all directions (or below). Is this the type of place that might work downtown? I see traffic on 3 sides and less intense traffic on the Nicollet Mall side. Sort of the Pioneer Square setup.
Heavy traffic can defintely impact the accessiblity - and ultimately the success of a plaza (I'm thinking a plaze like Columbus Circle might be a good example). But I'd argue that what's just as important (maybe more?) is to look at the uses and activities that take place within and adjacent to the space. If the place is "interesting" enough, people will find their way to it.
You're right, accessiblity is important, but I wouldn't say Minneapolis (or any other city) can't build a good public plaza because these are post-colonial cities with established auto traffic patterns.
November 6th, 2006 at 6:37 am
You've brought up some interesting examples. Let's take a closer look at them.
If you look at Washington Square park on a map, it appears to be the size of somewhere between 3 and 6 square blocks compared to the blocks around it. You'll also notice that the roads run (mostly straight into the park and if I'm not mistaken, they also constrict around the park, both of which are traffic calming measures.
Union Square is also about three blocks big. And in this case does have a ton more traffic. The only real calming measure I see here is in the southeast corner where two streets merge together.
I personally have never been to the center of Dupont Circle (although I've stayed in Hotels a block away several times. I would say, however, that 10 streets coming together is probably one of the best traffic calming measures you could take.
What's interesting about all of the examples that you've given is that all of them are actually outside of the regular grid of thier cities. Because of that, even if you are in a car you can't ignore them. Also, they are in some of the most dense parts of the country, which downtown Mpls certainly is not.
I'm not denying that Minneapolis could use some good public space. I just really don't think that greening a block that is surrounded by a library an office building and two parking ramps is actually going to provide that, and I really don't think that we should be building little parks just for the sake of building little parks. It's like that thing they say about customer service. If you are really nice to someone, they may tell one person. If you suck, they'll tell nine. Every time planners do something that they say will be a sucess and they fail, it makes it that much harder to do something that can really suceed. That's just my two cents.
November 6th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
what about that little park north east of the library? it's green and rolling with lots of benches and about half a block (which, in minneapolis, is a lot of area) and you never see anybody there.
the problem might not be lack of park space (there's also a quarter block concrete plaza right by the nicollet lrt station and peavy plaza on 11th and nicollet) but lack of a reason to be anywhere near any of them.
November 14th, 2006 at 11:36 am
"I just really don't think that greening a block that is surrounded by a library an office building and two parking ramps is actually going to provide that, and I really don't think that we should be building little parks just for the sake of building little parks."
Except that there are two condos going in across Hennepin, one of which will be huge and have a supermarket on the ground floor. Once those are in a park makes perfect sense, so doesn't planning ahead a little bit help everyone?
November 14th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Rem Koolhaas once wrote something to the effect that we no longer plan in response to need but rather use planning as a prediction. It's my opinion that that is one of the reasons why post-war planning has failed so miserably. I think it would be wiser to wait and see how residents use the space before you did a project like this. I also think it can't be a single block. It's got to be an exception to the system in order to enter popular imagination (see kevin lynch's research), especially in such a regulated city.
November 17th, 2006 at 7:16 am
I agree that it should be more of an exception to the grid system to really be great, but you can't built a park by waiting to see how residents use an ugly parking lot–they just don't get the same kind of use.
November 17th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Ideally you redirect traffic, you connect transit, and place the focus of uses on the space (rather than autos). I would strongly support any or all of those moves.
On the other hand, there's always a tension between ideal design, necessary functions, and the reality of working within an exisiting environment. And that tension creates tradeoffs.
Would I prefer to see redirected traffic instead of the grid. Oh, totally. I would love that.
Would I prefer to have it remain a parking lot if we couldn't get the traffic directed? Probably not, I'd rather have the better use of space.