Ridgedale mall

This week I am reflecting on a project that is taking place in my current neighborhood, Minnetonka, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Our highway exit is called “Ridgedale Drive,” referring to the local mall. Like many malls around the U.S., Ridgedale is experiencing major vacancies — here’s a little sample of what that looks like:

I’m thinking about this because I walked to the Ridgedale Library today, and I saw the progress of a project that I am really thrilled about. The local mall is right next to the public library, Target, and a grocery store, though the walk between each is a bit treacherous — cars, highway exits, no sidewalks — definitely not suited to pedestrians. However, the mall parking lot is being retrofitted to suit its context better. Damon Farber is the landscape architect working on the project, here are some renderings:

Project renderings from Damon Farber. Here’s the project website.

Possibly with this major renovation in mind, the City of Minnetonka is laying an important groundwork to facilitate active transportation to the new park. The road that runs from my home to Ridgedale was just retrofitted with a sidewalk. It’s a 40 mph road, two-lane, so it was absolutely not a safe road for pedestrians or bikes before the remodel. I had never considered walking on this road until the remodel. Even though it’s just a mile away, the car speeds were too fast, the road shoulders too narrow, and there were no sidewalks, so the default is to drive. Until living in Minneapolis and moving back to Minnetonka, I hadn’t realized how much infrastructure can limit (or make possible) mobility. The Minnetonka library is exactly as far from my house as the Minneapolis library was from my apartment in Minneapolis. While I would never think to drive to the library in Minneapolis, I only drove to the Minnetonka library until this year! Distances feel different in different settings, and infrastructure can make all the difference in our sense of possibility.

This new park at Ridgedale, I think, will suddenly make walking in our neighborhood normal. There might be events, and people might spend evenings out and about on foot. I might get to run into friends and friends’ parents and high school teachers. Shopping won’t be the only reason to visit this part of the city. Water quality will improve with the significant removal of the parking area. We’ll have new ways to get around — biking won’t just be for fancy bike commuters but for everyone. We can walk without a destination or a purpose, but just to visit the park and see people.

Above all, I think this project will benefit residents’ health — physical and mental.

There is plenty to consider and learn more about regarding the affordability of the new apartment units that are associated with the project, which businesses are chosen for the ground level of these ‘mixed-use’ buildings, the outreach that’s been done with neighbors, the environmental considerations that are going into this plan, and the motivations for the project. Looking at the renderings, the name “Ridgedale” certainly is present, so part of the vision must be to ‘revitalize’ the mall, I don’t know enough about the details of this project to comment on these topics. I do hope to learn more as the project progresses.

The only criticism that I can share is that so far it seems the “multi-use” bottom floor of the apartment complexes are going to national chains when this real estate could be a really incredible opportunity to build a local economy and to express local culture through small businesses. I notice this lack of local economy because I spent my high school and college years working for a family-run cafe and community hub in the neighborhood, whose lease was ended early to make way for new development. The hard-earned and lovingly-grown business was demolished and replaced, and it felt like a big loss. This new Ridgedale development could be an opportunity to foster local economies, but I’m not sure it will be.

I am interested in this case study in the context of our current Superstudio design project, as we’re considering how to work resourcefully with what already exists in a landscape, and finding ways to create new jobs, decarbonize, improve health, increase housing quality and affordability, and cultivate justice. The benefits of the new park could impact not only the immediate footprint by replacing a parking lot with a park, but will also have resounding impacts on the neighborhood, residents’ health, social lives, etc.

Seeing how much this park design is guided by and reliant upon development and private interests, I also see how necessary it is that we understand and can effectively communicate in the language of policy and development, in order to create truly just outcomes that benefit and reflect the lives and desires of local residents. This seems to be a critical link that’s missing in a lot of projects — private money moves a project toward completion, but the ethic of the project might be lost in the process. Policy, development, design, and ecology are siloed, and the timeline and financial model of the project doesn’t allow enough time for collaboration or effective communication (though I’m not sure “collaboration and communication” would even be enough in many cases). This seemed to be an issue with my earlier case study, the Klyde Warren highway overpass park, where private donors dictated the program of the park, taking away flexible open space from park users. As we are beginning to discuss in this studio, it seems a good strategy for learning to advocate for more just futures is learning the inner workings of policy and development.