Dear Minneapolis: Uptown is Dying. Here's What We Should Do About It.

Spoiler alert: Uptown is for the Olds

Jan 23, 2025

The Uptown Theater’s sign back in all its glory.

A year ago, my husband and I walked to dinner in the heart of Uptown. As we rounded the corner to the restaurant, passing the now-closed Paper Source, we fell into a familiar hand-wringing conversation.

Remember when Uptown was cool? What’s even going on here? Does anyone care?

I remember my first trip to Hennepin and Lake, circa 1995.

My mom took me back to school shopping at Urban Outfitters, the Gap, and Heartbreaker. We ate mock duck curry at the Lotus, then drove around the lakes on our way back to the freeway. I couldn’t believe a place this cool existed a mere 45 minute drive from my boring suburban neighborhood.

After returning to the Twin Cities post-college in 2005, I couldn’t fathom living anywhere else. I rented a one-bedroom in a 1930s brownstone on Lyndale, walking to and from Bde Mka Ska (the body of water Formerly Known As Lake Calhoun), probably listening to the Artist Formerly Known As Prince on my iPod shuffle. “Uptown”, Prince’s lead single on 1980’s Dirty Mind, proclaimed everybody was going to Uptown.

But sometimes when everyone wants to be in a place, real estate prices soar. The Uptown Bar can’t resist selling to Apple (or was it North Face? Columbia?). Figlio, home of a happy hour so iconic many could file it as their culinary Roman Empire, moved to St. Louis Park. (I will never forgive Parasole for this.) Bar Abilene, the only place allowing dancing (yes, really! Like in Footloose!), packed their tableside guac and margs and said hasta la vista, baby.

We (They? Someone?) neutered Uptown.

And it just got worse from there. The pandemic ripped a gash in the hull. The murder of George Floyd and its aftermath sank it. Whatever businesses remain get to see what happens when the main thoroughfare shuts down for two years to prioritize a road construction project a lot of neighbors don’t fully understand (myself included). I’m trying to be open minded, but right now, a walk through the neighborhood hurts my heart.

Forty-five years after Dirty Mind, Uptown is a place Prince (and anyone else who ever loved it) wouldn’t recognize.

People have attempted to save Uptown.

Sorta, anyway. We keep trying to force Uptown to be what it was– a hub for the young. For the artists, the punks, the musicians, the people who look at the time, see 10:21pm, and think, hey, it’s almost time to go out!

But the artists fled to Northeast; and if we had a modern version of the Replacements, they’d live there, too, or maybe Powderhorn. And the young people? They’re all signing expensive leases in a North Loop loft building named The Godfrey or The Jayne, making TikToks at one of Daniel del Prado’s 827 restaurants. A lot of Uptown is in bed at 10:21pm.

My fellow Gen Xers/Millennials, you might want to sit down for this: Uptown is no longer cool.

Young people don’t want to be here. How easily we forget that there’s nothing less cool than the olds telling the youngs what is cool. So: can we stop trying to force Uptown back into what it was, and give it the renaissance it deserves?

It’s time to make Uptown a place for the middle-aged.

Whenever I tell people I live in the Wedge (the neighborhood next to Uptown), I often hear, “I used to live there!” What many don’t realize is that people… still live here? And a lot of them have kids! In fact, our community elementary school added 100 new families last fall.

Downtown will always serve as a regional hub for sporting events, concerts, commerce. Uptown doesn’t need to fill that role. Instead, it should serve as a local hub. Geographically, it’s central to everything south, east and west of downtown. It’s walkable for many, and easy access via metro transit. And it’s basically just sitting there, doing nothing.

I see an Uptown that serves the Millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers who love it.

These are the folks invested in the neighborhood. They have kids, or grandkids. Or maybe they’re empty nesters, or childless by choice. They do not need brunches with cheap bottomless mimosas, or another giant party bar. They need places for families and grownups.

You know what sucks about living near Uptown with kids? You drive to the suburbs for almost everything. And that’s if you can afford a car and the spendy extra-circulars. Did you know there isn’t a single indoor play place in the city of Minneapolis? For that, you must drive to… you guessed it… the suburbs: Edina’s Edenborough, Pump it Up in Eden Prairie, or the Eagles Nest in New Brighton.

Fun Fact: Nearly 30,000 kids are enrolled in Minneapolis Public Schools. That doesn’t take into account kids too young to enroll in high-five or kindergarten, nor those who attend a private school, or open enroll in the suburbs. Let’s give these families a place to go.

So, imagine this: “Calhoun Square” (er… Seven Points. Come on, even North Loop lofts have better names!) with an indoor/outdoor play area, surrounded by a food hall serving great food, drinks, and good coffee. I’m dying to go somewhere to meet up with other families that isn’t a brewery. Let the parents socialize while their kids play independently nearby. Make it enticing enough that people without kids want to go, too. Maybe it’s a Malcolm Yards south. I don’t know; this is a brainstorm, folks!

Could we create a community center at the now-defunct YWCA? A place for swimming lessons, gymnastics, soccer, and maybe even pickleball courts? Because you know the only thing Americans can agree on right now is pickleball.

While we’re at it, let’s add retail, but in spaces compact and affordable enough that small businesses can make it work. I’d love to see a mix of new and more established brands, because merchandising is a skill. The only thing more depressing than a vacant store space is one haphazardly thrown together. Could we enlist people who can offer assistance in creating nice window displays, lighting and fixtures?

And food. Aside from a handful of places somehow managing to make it work (like Barbette, Lake & Irving, Amazing Thailand), there’s not a lot of options in Uptown proper. Have restaurateurs just given up? I actually would like to understand the barriers to opening in Uptown. Is it rent prices? Crime/vandalism? The perception of the neighborhood? Is it as basic as a numbers game— if enough good places open, will they help sustain each other?

Lastly, we need parking. The city eliminated almost all the street parking in Uptown. This is great news for bus riders and the handful of folks who bike year-round, but it does create a challenge for supporting local businesses. It’s hard to pick up takeout, stop at a salon, or swing by the now-defunct Kitchen Window when parking is a pain in the ass.

But you know what… there is a giant empty parking garage behind the Building Formerly Known as Calhoun Square. I guarantee people would be significantly more likely to shop and dine locally if the parking were free.

I’ll give Edina credit where it’s due: 50th & France is killing it. It’s a dense retail, dining, and entertainment area (with some housing, too) that not only serves their local community, but draws people from all over the Twin Cities. Why can’t we do something similar for Uptown? If you make it fun, enticing, and accessible, people will come.

How will we pay for it? Guys, I don’t know. What I do know is there’s plenty of money being spent outside of this community because there’s little left in Uptown to support. I’m starting the conversation, and hoping the message makes it into the inbox or DMs of the right people.

What’s your favorite Uptown memory? What would you like to see in Uptown? Is this the dumbest or the best idea? Share with the rest of us! (But be civil, please.)