BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
Nicollet Avenue has a big gap in it. You knew that, right? Maybe you even fought the battle to keep the gap from forming, back when it was a whole and continuous avenue. Well, in case you haven’t heard, it may be continuous again in the future, the gap closed up, the massive, forbidding, ugly parking lots swept away. It will take some time, and rather a lot of money, but it very well might happen. Last December, the City of Minneapolis bought the site at 30 W. Lake St., the old grocery store and its parking lot. At the same time, the city acquired a purchase option on the 10 W. Lake St. (K-Mart) site, the key site that’s needed to re-open Nicollet Avenue.
The history of the wall on the back of the K-Mart site is complicated, and so is the current legal ownership position of this land. It’s going to take a while for the city to acquire the land and it’s unclear exactly what path at this point will lead us to the betterment of this neighborhood hub. From a seven-page Community Planning and Economic Development document of last November, authored by David Frank, we learn that the city previously (April 2014) had “approved the Lake and Nicollet Redevelopment Plan, adopting a project area of 30 properties, designating the area as blighted, and identifying nine of the 30 parcels as sites the city may acquire, including 10 W. Lake St. and 30 W. Lake St. … [O]n December 14, 2011, the City Council directed CPED and Public Works to create a Project Team comprised of representatives from CPED, Public Works and Finance to advance the re-opening of Nicollet Avenue at Lake Street.” At that time, the City Council also passed the Minneapolis Plan for Sustainable Growth, which included this plan and others for other blighted or potentially better areas.
Also in this document is a simplified description of the “multi-layered” ownership and control of the K-Mart site, which hints at just how hard it will be to legally and amicably move control to the city, so that it can rectify a historic mis-step that literally everyone (well, maybe not K-Mart) now regrets.
“Leased Fee Estate/Ground Lease Landlord Lawrence Kadish (syndicated to multiple owners of undivided percentage interests as Tenants in Common, hereinafter identified as “Kadish”)
“Ground Lease Tenant & Operating Lease Landlord Troy Coolidge No. 42 LLC (a subsidiary of Sears Roebuck & Company, hereinafter identified as “Sears”)
“Operating Lease Tenant Sears Holding Corporation (hereinafter identified as “Kmart”)
“The city has had extensive and productive discussions with Mr. Kadish, but has been unable to date to make progress with Sears/Kmart regarding the purchase of their ground and operating lease interests.”
It appears from this document and other media coverage of the project that the city’s exercise of the purchase option will put them in the first position, i.e., they would purchase from Kadish and then become the landlords of the operating lease landlords, Sears. Currently, Sears will not negotiate with the city, but only discloses that the K-Mart on Lake Street is one of their most profitable stores, and they want to remain there. Here’s the really sticky part—they have a lease, which runs to 2053! And it’s at a very, very favorable rent, having been negotiated at a time when City Hall was desperate and willing to do anything to close the deal. (This may be why the K-Mart is profitable.) The city planners’ thinking is that by becoming the landlord themselves, they can insist that Sears negotiate with them. It’s obvious that Sears and K-Mart hold a lot of cards at this table. It’s good that they want to remain in the neighborhood, but their preference is for two things that are ruled out in the sustainability plan—a sprawling single-story store, and parking in front. The sustainability plan calls for all new structures to be at least two stories and preferably multi-use and taller, and for retail to front the main streets with windows open to the street, which perforce means parking to back and sides. The term “walkability” did not exist in the 1970s, nor did most people imagine that cities would ever have “bike plans” let alone a green bike and pedestrian highway.
It’s possible that one of the currently prized aspects of Nicollet Avenue, the highly praised “Eat Street” corridor just to the north of the Nicollet Wall, would never have come into existence without the K-Mart blocking the traffic. In December 2015, Walker Angell, posting on the blog streets.mn, asked, “Would removing K-Mart harm Nicollet Avenue?” Angell further mused: “Would traffic increase? Would there be more through traffic? More people who should be on 35W but think the newly re-opened Nicollet makes a good rat-run shortcut? More drivers trying to go somewhere other than cafés and other places on Nicollet?” Of course, we can hope that our city planners also take this into account, and design the new connecting stretch to avoid such an ironic outcome. Although streets.mn is looking at this from a “transpo” and pro-bike, pro-pedestrian viewpoint, it might also be a concern to Eat Street proprietors and chefs and the foodies who love them.
In case you hate food, or live in a cave, Eat Street is the stretch of Nicollet Avenue from 24th Street to 29th Street, containing over 40 small cafes, restaurants, grocery stores and gastropubs in its six blocks. It is something of a destination, especially for hip urban gourmets. With offerings ranging from those of unassuming appearance but uniquely ethnic food offerings, such as Pho Tau Bay (which got a “best of” City Pages cover), Quang, and the Marhaba Grill, to the sleek-decor but equally excellent food of places like Jasmine 26 or the Gyst Fermentation Bar. There are a huge number of Vietnamese establishments on Eat Street (and throughout the Twin Cities, truth be told) so they have to be good to stand out from the crowd, which Quang apparently does with all its frequent dining fans. Marhaba Grill is another one of those large and all-encompassing restaurants, with its own YouTube channel and offering a welcoming Iftar buffet during Ramadan.
But possibly the best thing Eat Street does are those restaurants that fall somewhere in the middle—neither sleek nor grungy, decent food whether ethnic specialty or not. Standout examples are Christo’s, which is a popular Greek place with a positioning that is just between casual and formal, and a clean and modern yet welcoming exterior. And the extremely popular Bad Waitress, which is one of those “with a name like Smucker’s” deals where the food has to carry on over the irony of the name, which they do with reasonably priced drinks, yummy cocktails, lots of vegetarian offerings, and organic produce. And of course, the quirky ones, like nationally-famous Glam Doll Donuts. It has a glam esthetic for sure, and Intelligentsia coffee (from Chicago) for its coffee drink accompaniments, and donuts ranging from old-school (apple fritters with real apple, and bourbon), to imaginative (a maple and bacon, one based on tres-leches cake) to downright exotic (a savory cheese donut with srirachi-peanut sauce, a cruller sandwich-filled with lemon cream cheese.)
But maybe we don’t have to worry about Eat Street. South of Lake things on Nicollet start to get a little more staid and upmarket. And there are some excellent eateries and drinkeries down there, too—both the new and exciting and the old and established. It’s about at 38th Street, a sort of mini-Eat Street in its own right, that the change takes hold. Near the corner are two Asian restaurants that offer a study in contrast. One is Japanese sushi restaurant Kyatchi, riding high on the wave of popularity that is sushi in America. I see from its website that it’s a concept of a conglomerate of restaurateurs, of which one is Kim Bartmann, so I’m not surprised that they list the sourcing of ingredients, subscribe to sustainable fish ideals, and provide a bike map. More oriented toward dining in and community, it’s very up to the minute. The other Asian place on the corner is an update of the old school Chinese-American take-away and delivery place, albeit with a small dine-in option: Dragon Wok. It is distinguished by its amazing low prices, especially if you choose the “small” option, and does have some nods to pan-Asian cuisine such as Pad Thai.
But for really old-school, look to a very American business again in the Nicollet/38th Street radius, Finer Meats. This family-run butcher and deli has been in the location for over 50 years. They offer newer popular products such as teriyaki jerky in the smoked meats, and tilapia in the fresh fish, and standards forever, such as smoked whole turkeys, various pot roasts and Delmonico steaks, and then some really old-school items like livercheese, head-cheese and house-made summer sausage. Another astonishingly long-staying restaurant, a little farther south, is Curran’s. It has been at the location, although not in the same building, for an amazing 68 years. Let’s hope the ugly parking lot of K-Mart doesn’t hang on long enough to beat that record.
