Personal Connection
My interest in the Kmart site, 10
West Lake Street in Minneapolis grew out of a fascination of the dead end on Nicollet Avenue. After living for nearly a decade in both Minneapolis and Saint Paul, I learned very quickly to avoid the Nicollet & Lake area as well as the 1-way streets on either side of it.
Though I never personally shopped
in the Kmart before its 2020 closing, research is showing that it may have been more than just a roadblock or a department store. This Kmart served as the community grocery store, clothing store, office supply shop, and meeting place.
Some
would
even
argue
that
without the “roadblock” Nicollet Avenue would have developed similar to Hennepin Avenue and Lyndale Avenue, busy, loud, and expensive.
With this commodity gone, a void
is left within the city, a once bustling retail hotspot now lays desolate as a 10 acre fenced off eye sore. On the site,
issues
of
crime,
abandonment,
and identity are in plain sight, and acquiring this land has been a 5 year, $23 Million endeavor by the City of Minneapolis. The question is how will the site live on?
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