Development Part 11: Renewed Interest in the Core

DevelopmentDevelopmentPart 11: Renewed Interest in the Part 11: Renewed Interest in the

CoreCore David A. LanegranDavid A. Lanegran

Geography Geography DepartmentDepartment

Macalester Macalester CollegeCollege

Geography of the Twin Cities

The downtown leadership has responded with facilities that require centrality and proximity. The Convention business seems ideally suited to downtowns. In addition, developers have worked hard to make plans work for multipurpose office towers. In practically all cases, these new buildings have been facilitated by government programs.

Minneapolis has some spectacular examples of post-modern architecture. This is the I. M. Pei building, designed as the headquarters for Norwest Bank.

The 1990s were a time of excitement in the development and architecture communities. This is the building that would be headquarters for the First Bank System.

This building, built by speculators, lacks a major tenant but is an excellent example of a post-modern structure. We see the fanciful top, the bands of colored masonry, and the denial of the idea that form should follow function with as little decorative trim as possible.

This view of downtown Minneapolis in winter shows how abruptly the built-up portion of downtown ends. We can see the surface parking lots and armory as indications of the limited economic power of the city center. Much of the surface parking in this picture was cleared some 30 years ago.

Here we see the potential of downtown; the high-rise core with its beautiful and efficient high-rise skyline, the open land around the Metro Dome, and the University of Minnesota. Many believe that an effective link between University research and downtown business will cause another growth spurt in the urban economy, akin to the computer boom of the 1960s and 1970s.

Perhaps the most disappointing development scheme put forward by the downtown business community was the Hubert H. Humphrey Metro Dome. The downtown interests forced the move of the Vikings and Twins into downtown from Bloomington with the expectation that an entertainment and lodging boom would follow. These optimists apparently did not study the land use around the Met Center. In any event, Bloomington got the Mega Mall and Minneapolis has been forced to cope with the illogical economics of professional sports. Even the world championships of the Twins could not bring development to this part of the city.

The small and compact center of St. Paul seeks a new identity. It can no longer be thought of as competition to downtown Minneapolis, but it clearly is not an edge city.

What heavy industry that remains in the metro area is located in the suburbs where there is space and few neighbors to complain. This is the refinery in St. Paul Park.

Suburban development continues apace but economies of scale are producing high density developments so the simplistic thoughts about single family suburban and commercial downtowns have proven untenable.

Some manufacturing and headquarters activities have moved to the suburbs to take advantage of accessibility and space. This is a portion of the Deluxe Check corporation in Shoreview.

The Land-O-Lakes Headquarters seems to defy common notions about Corporate culture. This building is not visible from the roads around the site.

Close up of the Land-O-Lakes Headquarters.

The need to compete with the Mega Mall forced the owners of Southdale to expand and remodel their historic shopping center.

Southdale was the world's first climate-controlled shopping mall. It is now dwarfed by the larger malls and lacks the entertainment functions that were added to malls in the 1980s. It is basically a covered, air-conditioned street.