Counterpoint: To save downtown Minneapolis, we need more than doors

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Eric Roper’s late-May column “To save Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, we need more doors” [Minnesota Star Tribune opinion editor’s note: See also Roper’s follow-up “Plentiful ideas to fix Nicollet Mall show it has a bright future,” June 6, and his live blog on June 3] misdiagnoses the issues with downtown.

First, we need to acknowledge that we have two downtowns. The Warehouse District is thriving. There are now over 60,000 people living downtown, more than Apple Valley, or Edina or Minnetonka. That part of downtown is doing great.

The other part of downtown that used to have lots of office workers — not so much. And we shop differently now. Those of us old enough to remember the Dayton’s and Donaldson’s anchors are not shopping downtown anymore.

So how do we bring back vitality to this part of downtown? Roper proposes chopping large commercial spaces into smaller spaces, adding more doors to buildings and requiring transparent windows. Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed turning Nicollet Mall into a pedestrian mall, an idea that was in fashion in the 1960s and 1970s and then died.

This focuses on the wrong problem. People don’t go places because of great street infrastructure. They go places because they have great experiences. Fun, unique experiences that bring joy. And right now, joy is missing in a big chunk of downtown.

Our proposal isn’t windows or buses or pedestrian malls. Our proposal is that the mayor and Minneapolis Downtown Council create a Downtown Joy Committee and put real money behind it. Sounds crazy, but hear us out.

An “experience economy” is an economy based on selling memorable experiences to customers. The term was first used in a 1998 article by Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore. The idea is that the places that will thrive will be those that do not just provide goods and services but provide a joyous and positive experience with those goods and services.

Pine and Gilmore argue that every place needs one of four components. It must be either entertaining, educational, escapist or aesthetically pleasing. It must engage participants in the experience. Think an ice cream shop that does magic tricks. A travel agency with virtual reality. A restaurant that cooks in front of you or lets you pick your own fish to eat.

Recently one of us two authors went to the Eden Prairie Center, then Scheels. One is thriving and one is not. Both have clothing, sporting goods, home furnishings. The thriving one also has a Ferris wheel, an aquarium, a bronze statue of Ronald Reagan, a candy store, an animatronic Herb Brooks, a bowling alley — and allows dogs.

The Downtown Joy Committee would be charged with bringing fun and unique things to downtown. A Paisley Park mini-museum. A CanCan Wonderland downtown. An MIA satellite museum. A Franconia Sculpture Garden and Sculpture Garden mini-art exhibits on corners. A skyway mini-golf with businesses designing zany holes. A skate park. A kids’ gym like Edinborough Park in Edina — because if the kids come, parents will come, and credit cards will appear.

Minnesotans are pathologically shy and hide their history. Where is our General Mills or Pillsbury cookie store? Our Minnesota Music Museum? Our Betty Crocker murals? Our Cream of Wheat hoodies? The Milky Way bar was invented here. And the Nerf ball. 3M, come on in. Spam, you too. Zubaz?

And we need Minnesota soul food, not another corporate “concept.” Greenies at every bar. Dusty’s dagos. Jucy Lucys. A real hotdish restaurant, with tater tot hotdish but all the other kinds too. Gedney pickle vending machines. Candyland outposts. Broders and Holy Land and United Noodles downtown.

The Downtown Joy Committee would need money to lure these businesses to take a risk. Locations would have to be picked strategically to grow the goodness in the North Loop into the rest of downtown. Property owners would have to help. But it could be done.

Downtown is the stage on which we celebrate our community, and every day is a new production. We are all members of the cast. We need to act like it.

And maybe the most uncomfortable thing is we have to figure out how to be a little stupid. A little silly. To express the dumb joy in who we are, tangibly. The places that bring joy are where we can laugh at ourselves and laugh together. And that joy can save downtown.

David Feehan grew up on the North Side of Minneapolis, was president of the International Downtown Association and has been consulting on place-making for 40 years. Carol Becker, of Minneapolis, is a college professor and data analyst. For 16 years she was a member of the Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation. A version of this article first appeared in the Minneapolis Times.