New Designs Revealed for $50 Million Renovation of Minneapolis' Nicollet Mall

Peter Callaghan provides a first look at new designs for the $50 million redo of Nicollet Mall in Downtown Minneapolis. The new designs discarded an earlier version of the plan that would built "stairways between a skyway and Nicollet Mall near 7th Street S." 

"So what now?" asks Callaghan. "In addition to a new design that [Director of Transit Development David] Frank called 'better in almost every way,' the project planners will rely on 'wayfinding.'" The loss of the stairways, Callghan admits, might be disappointing "to those who hoped to reimagine the skyway's relationship with street-level activity. But ridding the plan of the grand stairways that descended down to the mall liberated the designers to do something different with the project's central section."

The article goes on to detail the components of the plan, as designed by James Corner Field Operations, including an Art Walk and a "Light Walk" (i.e., the east side of the street will "have a long trellis with slanted mirror panels, or fins, above") along either side of the street. The article also features a set of renderings, including one showing a place on the Nicollet Mall for the winter sport of curling.