Roper: New Minneapolis light rail route threads through strange concrete wasteland

Sign up here to follow this column by email.

Nothing says “Welcome to Minneapolis” like a mountain of crushed concrete.

That’s what will greet future Southwest light-rail passengers along the sparsely populated, industrial path that trains will follow as they rumble into downtown.

Minneapolis leaders held their nose just over a decade ago when they approved this strange route. Then-Council Member Lisa Bender argued that the train “bypasses our city’s neighborhoods” during a 2014 rally calling for better bus connections.

I remember hunting for the locations of the proposed Southwest stops, ambling along freight tracks as I imagined a future where the area didn’t feel quite so ... empty. Now, two years from the ribbon-cutting, the primary difference is just that shiny new stations dot the landscape.

This emptiness is especially stark at the Bassett Creek Valley station, which is interesting because it was built alongside a large city-owned site once eyed as a prime spot for redevelopment. The city uses it to recycle concrete and store street sweepings.

This moonscape is known as Linden Yards. You don’t hear much about it today, but overhauling Linden Yards was a big part of planning for the area two decades ago.

“[I]ts proximity and visual prominence as a gateway into downtown Minneapolis suggests a higher and better use,” said the 2007 Bassett Creek Master Plan, which called for a mix of office, housing and civic uses on the Linden Yards site. Neighbors objected to a proposal to store trains there, because of its great potential.

This former rail yard, known as “the banana” because of its shape, is wedged between Interstate 394, the Minneapolis Impound Lot and Bryn Mawr Meadows Park. It is in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood, but just south of the Harrison neighborhood.

The brand-new station beside it was expected to serve just over 300 riders a day in a final environmental review for Southwest — the lowest ridership of the entire route. Those projections were rooted in existing uses of the area, however, rather than ambitious development plans.

Since planning was finalized, some affordable-housing buildings have been developed in an evolving industrial area that’s about a 10-minute walk from the station. But no one lives in the immediate surroundings.

Given the line’s nearly $3 billion price tag and the rarity of an undeveloped, city-owned parcel surrounding a new light-rail station, you’d think there would be more public discussion about the future of Linden Yards. The council member who represents that area, Katie Cashman, declined my request for an interview.

So what happened?

In 2010, the city granted Ryan Cos. exclusive development rights for the western portion of Linden Yards for several years. Tony Barranco of Ryan said in an interview that they were pitching it to potential office users, but there were a lot of questions at the time about when light rail would actually arrive. (The line was supposedly about five years away in 2015, but we all know how that turned out.)

Developers at the time considered the Linden Yards site somewhat ideal because of its proximity to major freeway, transit and bicycle routes, said David Frank, who was the city’s director of transit-oriented development while Ryan was searching for office users.

One discovery was that the soils were poor, Frank said, meaning any structure there would need deep pilings. Those are expensive.

In 2013, the city opened the Van White Memorial Bridge, which cut through the Linden Yards site and created an important connection between the North Side and points south. The bridge is now connected to the light-rail station.

Potential development in the area also put pressure on the city to rethink its impound lot, which sits on about 28 acres just north of the station — much of which is essentially a surface parking lot. The city looked at potentially relocating the impound lot, but chose instead to renovate it.

I asked the city about the future plans for Linden Yards. Spokesperson Allen Henry sent me a statement highlighting the half-century legacy of crushing and recycling concrete on the site, which has reused 3.5 million tons of rubble for other uses around the city.

“While there was past interest in developing the yards for other uses, it was determined to not makes sense financially,” the statement said. “The City is working on a master plan study to guide strategic decision making for future use of Linden Yard and other nearby Public Works facilities.”

A “master plan study to guide strategic decision making” means a couple of consultants are definitely going to earn their holiday bonuses.

Metro Transit closely tracks development happening around new transit projects, and their maps show much more development near the suburban Southwest stops compared with those in Minneapolis. I recently stood at the Beltline Boulevard station in St. Louis Park, beside 420 units of new housing, and marveled at signage denoting trains to Union Depot. (Southwest will be quite a journey from end to end.)

Bassett Creek Valley is one of five new light-rail stops in Minneapolis.

The Royalston/Farmers Market station, which is just northwest of downtown, is in a largely industrial area that’s been discussed as a possible spot for a new basketball arena. The Bryn Mawr station is largely surrounded by parkland and single-family homes, requiring a decent walk to the closest new apartment construction. The 21st Street Station, which should be called the “Hidden Beach Station,” is adjacent to the built-out Kenwood neighborhood.

The bright spot of the Minneapolis stations is West Lake Station, northwest of Bde Maka Ska, which has seen a fair amount of apartment construction. This area was already pretty dense and lively before Southwest LRT was finalized, and is now connected to the B Line rapid bus line.

If you have thoughts about this or other Southwest-related topics, send me an e-mail at eric.roper@startribune.com.