City Council approves 35W expansion

by Ed Felien

“It went through, but it wasn’t pretty,” Minneapolis City Council President Paul Ostrow told his secretary Friday after the meeting. The Council approved a resolution to support expansion of 35W on a 9 to 3 vote (Natalie Johnson Lee, Robert Lilligren and Dean Zimmermann voted against) with one (Dan Niziolek) abstention. The version was quite different from the one approved by the Hennepin County Board the week before.

Planning on improvements to access to 35W have been discussed in South Minneapolis for at least 10 years. Residents have always wondered why there weren’t entrance and exit ramps off of Lake Street. Changes approved by the City Council and the County Board will now facilitate that. Two new ramps will be constructed at Lake Street, and the 35th Street and 36th Street ramps will be moved to 38th Street.

The most controversial feature of the improvements has been a flyover ramp that would go from the freeway exit over Lake Street to 28th Street to allow employees and patrons of the Wells Fargo office complex at 5th Avenue and the Abbott-Northwestern Hospital complex at Elliot to reach the hospital without having to go down Lake Street. Recently, the task force scaled down the flyover ramp so it would not block quite so much sunlight and would take only four units of housing and not the original eight.

Allina, the owners of the Abbott-Northwestern site, quite recently raised the ante on the proposal by publicly saying they were considering moving their headquarters to the Sears building site if they could get the exit ramp to 28th Street. The presence of such a major tenant would assure the success of the Sears project and would go great lengths to improve the economic conditions at Chicago and Lake.

Dean Zimmermann said, “Allina says that they want these freeway ramps. I contend that what Allina really wants is not the ‘excess’ ramps or the expansion of the freeway, but what Allina wants is to be able to get its employees, patients, vendors and visitors, etc. to and from the campus safely, enjoyably, efficiently, inexpensively and, if possible, without polluting the natural environment. If the ‘excess’ ramps do that—great! But do the ‘excess’ ramps really do that?
“And would the same amount of money invested in some other strategy accomplish that goal just as well, or, perhaps, even better?”

It will take a short period for the dust to settle, but it looks like the 35W expansion project is going forward.