Nicollet Mall, the 1960s-era transformation of downtown Minneapolis’ main shopping street, has stagnated for so long that even saying so has become cliché. Go there outside of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and it compares poorly to main streets of comparable cities like Denver, Madison, Portland, Milwaukee and Des Moines. 

Its quiet stems from its lack of storefronts and the subsequent lack of activity. But the lack of vibrancy is ironic because in other ways – theaters, great restaurants, and a strong economy – downtown Minneapolis is doing quite well. Nicollet Mall hasn’t contributed to that vitality for years.  

“It’s just not working,” Mayor Jacob Frey told me a few weeks ago. “We also have a massive opportunity with the changeover of several of these buildings. We have to try something different here.”

The puzzle remains: How can Minneapolis fix Nicollet Mall? How can the city lure people into spending time and money in its central office district when it has so few storefronts? 

Related: Need to go? In Minneapolis, you’ll need to wait.

It’s not an easy problem. For years, Frey’s office has leaned on activating the street with a variety of events and temporary installations – part of the city’s Downtown Action Plan. Most of the ideas up for discussion have required moving transit off its current routes, mothballing the two-lane “transit mall” that’s been around since the street’s 1960s inception. That shift has prompted pushback from some transit advocates and riders, making Nicollet Mall another in a long line of City Hall controversies. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Thanks to negotiations with Metro Transit, alternatives seem viable. Most of Nicollet’s current bus routes would shift onto the nearby Marquette and 2nd Ave. bus lanes, just east of Nicollet. Thanks to shifts in commuting patterns, moving bus routes to these well-designed streets would speed up transit by 40% (see image below). On a slow trip through downtown, those are meaningful minutes.

“I feel very strongly that this is a good transit decision,” Frey said in a meeting with journalists earlier this year. “It would dramatically cut back on the time that it takes to get through downtown because the buses stopped wouldn’t impede the buses that aren’t stopping.”

As with any transit tradeoffs, the faster trip will mean a longer walk for some. But still, the Marquette/2nd Ave. option is best for general transit through downtown.

Sambusas always help

The more fundamental issue remains the abyss of street life, which will be made worse by a lack of transit riders. Moving everyday people off the street is a counterintuitive first move for a revitalization effort and only raises the stakes of the programming to come. 

What to do? Food is the obvious place to start. 

A regular farmer’s market returning to the mall would be a great first step, and it could even be there every day on a small scale. Likewise, street vendors should be encouraged to post up on every block. What happened to the hot dog vendor who used to sell on Nicollet Mall? Give me some Dippin’ Dots, egg rolls, watermelon, corn dogs, pretzels, sambusas.

More simply, park a dozen food trucks on key blocks each day, rotating them according to themes or taste. Surround them with movable tables and chairs during the nine months of tolerable weather. Lanyard-wearing workers will come blinking into the sun in search of novelty.

Downtown’s fundamental flaw

I suspect, however, that these ideas would prove divisive amongst the powers that be, like Minneapolis BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association) and the Downtown Council. Their bottom lines depend on keeping rents high for skyway chains like Potbelly and Crisp and Green. Rent-free food trucks would create direct competition, threatening those valuations.

Long-time readers will remember this fight playing out 15 years ago, when weekly food truck events provoked property owners and disturbed the vacant tranquility of Marquette Avenue. A lot has changed since then, but not the tensions around brick and mortar shops, skyways and street life. Building owners likely will not be happy about sandwich vendors “stealing” customers, even in exchange for Nicollet Mall vitality. 

This recurring conflict illuminates downtown Minneapolis’ fundamental flaw. The skyway buildings surrounding Nicollet are designed (with few exceptions) to be insular, self-contained fortresses, buttressed against the helter-skelter street life outside. The Mall’s survival, on the other hand, depends on getting people out of their office towers and onto the street.

These two forces – design for inside or design for outside – have been at an impasse in Minneapolis for decades, and I don’t see how the tension will resolve without enticing more people to the area. Downtown, with its shrinking group of everyday office workers,  needs more all-day activity from its growing residential population and from people who live in surrounding neighborhoods. 

In theory, programming on the Nicollet sidewalks could tip the balance. The city could make it easy to host block parties (like downtown Rochester has done). They could identify funding to expand street cafés and push expansions from any street-level business into the now-open skywalk. I’d love to see skateboarding demonstrations, or regular street musicians. Make it fun and welcoming, especially to younger people.

‘Let’s move it over’

Whatever happens, it all begins with moving the transit.

“We’re already closing the mall 150, 130 days or something like that per year,” Frey said. “We’re going to continuously expand the number of days that Nicollet Mall is closed anyway. For the sake of reliability, consistency for riders and speed, let’s move it over.”

According to the Mayor’s office, the city requires a new ordinance approved by the City Council for the transit changes to move forward. Building consensus around improving downtown should be easier once the transit decision has been made, though nothing seems easy these days in Minneapolis City Hall. 

Related: Did Minneapolis’ ugliest building have to be this bad?

In the meantime, the city and the Downtown Council have launched an effort called Nicollet Next, which centers on a “prototyping festival” showcasing “temporary installations aimed at improving vibrancy, comfort, and the downtown experience for workers, residents, and visitors” (listed in that order). The newest pieces are large musical notes that play tracks from famous Minneapolis bands. (Note: It can’t be worse than the piped-in classical music from the grey lampposts that have been dominating the soundscape for years.) 

I remain skeptical that the powers-that-be along Nicollet Mall will loosen up and reorient the street toward everyday people, but I hope I’m wrong. Once buses are gone and the space resembles a blank slate, we’ll see what kinds of vitality we can foster. 

It’s certainly possible to envision a Nicollet Mall with more people from all walks of Minneapolis life. The question is whether our current city leaders can turn that vision to reality.

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