Demolition starts on Nicollet Avenue re-connection project in Minneapolis

The long-discussed re-connection of Nicollet Avenue at Lake Street took its first step. The former SuperValu attached to the west end of the former Kmart came tumbling down. The Kmart is scheduled to be next, but not for at least a year.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - After nearly a quarter century of talk, action came Wednesday in the form of demolition. The long-discussed re-connection of Nicollet Avenue at Lake Street took its first step.

The former SuperValu attached to the west end of the former Kmart came tumbling down. The Kmart is next, but not for at least a year.

But the long-planned Nicollet Redevelopment project is underway.

"Excited… very excited!" said Tsuy Lai, at the Bambu store a few blocks to the north, on the stretch of Nicollet known as Eat Street.

"If that will help our business bring more traffic in… the traffic will be much easier for customers… for everyone."

The Kmart opened at Lake Street and Nicollet in 1978, effectively building a wall on Nicollet that became a barrier for the next four decades. Minneapolis city planners had been working to revitalize the intersection in the 1970s, but had no developers.

Demolition begins at store next to Lake Street Kmart

After a long wait, work to open Nicollet Avenue began this week as crews demolished the grocery store next to the Lake Street Kmart in Minneapolis. Drone video shows crews at work at the former store.

When Kmart said they wanted two city blocks and that would include building over Nicollet, cutting it off, the city wasn’t excited about it, but let it happen anyway. The city soon regretted it.

Talk of reconnecting Nicollet began in the late 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2017 that the city bought the property back. In 2020, after the city didn’t renew the lease, Kmart closed. Plans to tear it down were put on hold when the U.S. Postal Service moved in after their own buildings were damaged in the 2020 riots.

The Postal Service won’t move out for another year, but Minneapolis didn’t want to wait to tear down the SuperValu portion of the building, approving a $500,000 contract this past summer.

Minneapolis has begun gathering public input on the site’s redevelopment, which will make Nicollet a connected street once again. An online survey is already up and will collect input through November.

The city also plans other outreach to the neighborhood to plan how the streets will look, what sort of public spaces there should be and how much and what kind of housing should be built.

That work will continue throughout 2023 with the demolition of the Kmart coming perhaps as late as 2024. The new intersection is years away, but after decades of talking about it, it’s closer to reality than ever.

"Yeah, I would wait!" said Tsuy Lai, reflecting the enthusiasm for the development that much of the area has expressed. "Better than nothing. Better than them not doing anything!"