Roper: Momentum is building for a rebirth of Uptown

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The first step to fixing a struggling place is getting people to care about it. Lots of people.

So I’ve been paying attention to efforts taking shape in Minneapolis’ Uptown area, where sizable crowds have been meeting to sketch out its future.

The latest gathering, on June 25, nearly filled the renovated Granada Theater on Hennepin Avenue (which has a delightfully unusual interior, including a constellation ceiling). A similarly well-attended gathering in April briefly shooed away the tumbleweeds from inside Seven Points mall — formerly Calhoun Square.

Uptown’s empty storefronts seem to be revving people up in a good way. It is a “clean slate,” as one panelist put it at the recent event, co-hosted by four neighborhood organizations and the Uptown Association.

“Think of this as sort of after the fire, when everything is cleared out,” Peter Remes, whose firm recently bought the former Apple Store building on Hennepin, told the crowd. “And now the green shoots of opportunity are starting to come up through the ground.”

Uptown has better bones than almost any commercial district in our region, which is why I’m bullish about where it’s headed. It is a short walk from the celebrated Chain of Lakes, intersected by a nationally renowned bicycle freeway, dotted with loads of new apartment buildings, anchored by historic theaters and soon will be crisscrossed by rapid bus lines.

These are the building blocks of a great place.

But Uptown has lost many businesses in recent years amid a decline that was accelerated by social unrest and road construction. At the April event, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Uptown has rebounded slower than many other hard-hit neighborhoods in the city.

“Bring Uptown back” would be the wrong framing, however, said June panelist Bill Lindeke. Retail has changed too much since COVID, he said, and there are now many other districts vying to be mixed-use destinations like Uptown once was. Think North Loop and the West End.

Uptown has to find its own identity, in other words, and it’s not located in the aisles of Victoria’s Secret, H&M, CB2, North Face, Columbia or Urban Outfitters.

Remes said Uptown’s strength is that it is “funky” and “esoteric.” A rep for Seven Points’ owner called it “eclectic energy.” That may have been less obvious in its Big Retail era. But Prince’s 1980 song “Uptown,” which played during an intermission, captures the area’s once-liberating vibe.

Where I come from, we don’t let society tell us how it’s supposed to be. / Our clothes, our hair, we don’t care. / It’s all about being there. / Everybody’s going Uptown. / That’s where I want to be. / Uptown. / Set your mind free.

Prince was 22 when that song came out. I lived in Uptown in my 20s and it felt like a Minneapolis rite of passage (though I think I failed at setting my mind free). Whatever Uptown becomes, I hope it captures that youthful spirit.

This isn’t just some abstract conversation about Uptown’s personality, however. There are signs of movement.

A business improvement district funded by assessments (similar to the Downtown Improvement District) may one day help steer Uptown’s identity and daily operations. The Uptown Association hosted the April meeting to get the conversation started on that effort — which would need approval from property owners.

Uptown Association President Andrea Corbin said at that meeting they were going to attempt to simultaneously draw 30 to 40 businesses to the area. That’s easier said than done, but I credit them for the ambition.

A farmers market has begun on Thursdays in the alley next to Seven Points, an initiative that I’ve noticed is suddenly being advertised on buses around town. Moona Moono, Queermunity and Mosaic Coffee Co. have recently opened near each other on a key stretch of Hennepin. A developer hopes to break ground in the fall on a five-story apartment building in place of the old CB2 at Hennepin and 31st Street.

At the same time, developer Jim Graves described the emptiness of Uptown’s primary intersection at Hennepin and Lake Street as “an embarrassment.” He said landlords have an obligation to “make things happen.” But there is also too much retail space, Graves said.

“Some of it’s got to go away. Some of it’s got to be reutilized,” Graves said at the June event.

Seven Points, in particular, is a hub for a lot of empty retail space. Lindeke said that urban malls don’t work.

“I think that’s an example of the kind of inflexible land use that doesn’t really adapt well to the changing conditions that we find ourselves in now,” said Lindeke, who teaches and writes about urban issues.

Maybe that could be the spot for the indoor playground that Frey and state Rep. Katie Jones, DFL-Minneapolis, floated during the elected officials portion of the recent discussion. Soon to be a father of two, Frey said he sheepishly takes his daughter in the winter to a playground in Edina. He has previously proposed an indoor playground for downtown.

The politicians were asked about how Uptown ranks among their priorities, considering tight public budgets and plenty of places seeking help. Jones highlighted a previous column of mine noting attempts to build new destinations outside the urban core, while there is already a lot of existing infrastructure in places like Uptown.

“Should we be creating more destinations when really it’s our downtowns, it’s our uptowns that would not take as much investment to bring the same ... activity and vibrancy as building something completely new?” Jones said. “Investing in Minneapolis actually benefits everyone across the metro.”

Maybe I’m being Pollyannaish or nostalgic, but I think Uptown is primed for a new chapter. And it will probably be more interesting than the last one.