Lake Street Council awards grants to rebuild Lake Street

The Lake Street Council announced it has awarded funds to 20 business owners and nonprofit organizations to help them rebuild and invest in property on Lake Street.
“In 2020, Minneapolis and St. Paul sustained more than $500 million in damages,” said Allison Sharkey, executive director of the Lake Street Council. “This has had a tremendous toll on hundreds of local business owners and significantly disrupted their ability to make a living, much less support our region’s economy. Small business owners are committed to staying and rebuilding in their communities, but they can’t do it alone. This funding program is one way we’re helping them purchase property – some for the first time – and invest in Lake Street.”
A total of $710,000 in acquisition funding and $600,000 in predevelopment funding has so far been distributed or committed to recipients, including:
• Adenal: To replace the historic Odd Fellows building that was destroyed with a new mixed-use development.
• Du Nord Social Spirits: To rehabilitate a two-story industrial building into a production center and culinary arts education and support space.
• El Rey Car Audio: To rehabilitate a single-story commercial space into a new home for El Rey Car Audio.
• Gandhi Mahal: To create a new mixed-use, multi-story construction building that will serve as the new home for the restaurant Gandhi Mahal, among other businesses.
• Holy Trinity Lutheran Church: To secure land that will serve as a permanent home for the Pangea World Theater in concert with the Center for Peace and Justice project.
• LV’s Barbershop: To purchase an existing building to be used as the continued Minnesota School of Barbering.
• MIGIZI: To support a renovation and expansion of an existing commercial building to become the new home for MIGIZI, a recently displaced organization that serves Native youth.
• Seward Redesign: To bring the historic Coliseum Building back to life under Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) leadership and visioning, to ensure long-term commercial space affordability for 25 local BIPOC entrepreneurs and small businesses.