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Hennepin Lyndale Coalition Update
January 28th, 2020
The Hennepin Lyndale Crossroads Coalition has marked its second successful year working to improve the character of one of the city’s premiere historic cultural corridors. The coalition grew out of efforts by Citizens for a Loring Park Community and the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association when they created a community advisory committee that advocated for design improvements during the planning of the 2015 roadway reconstruction project.
The coalition, after securing funding and donations for plantings, brought in Green Minneapolis, the downtown conservancy organization which, in partnership with the two neighborhoods and the important institutions surrounding the corridor, have worked to provide new landscaping and maintenance that is befitting this central urban space.
In 2019 the Coalition added several new landscaped areas in collaboration with MnDOT. This included a large area at the south end adjacent to the exit from I-94 and another along Loring Park where new evergreens and other trees will provide important screening for the park.
Work began this fall to draw attention to the Dunwoody Underpass adjacent to the Basilica of St. Mary. Working with the Hennepin Theater Trust, the coalition will be pursuing opportunities to help turn this dark and dreary urban space into a pedestrian friendly gateway to the city. The coalition is also beginning long-term planning where more dramatic changes may happen here the future. Two fifth year architecture students at Dunwoody College are contributing to this effort by exploring the possibilities of creative new forms and uses at the underpass as part of their graduation thesis projects. Their projects will be complete in May of this year.
Hennepin Lyndale Coalition Update
October 1st, 2019
Corridor Organizations: CLPC, and Lowry Hill
This week 6 Austrian Pine and 3 Norway Spruce were planted across from Loring Park adjacent to I-94. Next month 8 Kentucky Coffee Trees will be planted in the round niches across from Lurcat and Loring Corners. With the 10 trees that were planted at the south end of the corridor last spring we now have over 120 more trees here than we did in 2016.
We’re not done planting. With dozens of shrubs, vines, and more trees, the freeway’s once barren edges will fill out with layers of green. This buffer will protect the environment of Loring Park in multiple ways. It will also have the effect of tying Loring Park and the Mpls Sculpture Garden a little more closely together as one continuous green space.
This greening is possible because of a public-private partnership that includes the corridor’s great institutions, two neighborhoods, Green Minneapolis, and MnDOT. Stay tuned. The coalition is going back to its urban design advocacy roots this fall when a process begins to reimagine and remake the freeway underpass next to the Basilica and Dunwoody College.