Minneapolis City Council pushes back George Floyd Square construction
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The Minneapolis City Council voted Thursday to delay a plan for street construction at George Floyd Square, the intersection on the city’s south side where a Minneapolis police officer murdered Floyd in 2020. Instead, the council opted to consider a pedestrian-only plaza.
City staff drafted a construction proposal based on rounds of community engagement over the last several years. It would have called for construction to start on the streets in the intersection this summer, with an eye towards adding new memorials and rebuilding a defunct gas station in the following years.
Council member Jason Chavez introduced a new resolution in favor of a pedestrian plaza.
“This resolution is supporting a pathway forward,” Chavez said. “I am saying that we will be building a pedestrian mall moving forward, but we will also be hearing from community to address the concerns that they have about livability, about housing, about economic development.”
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City staff who drafted the proposal previously told the council that they considered a pedestrian plaza, but found it wasn’t a feasible option, given needs for access to homes and businesses. But council members said they want to take the time to study the option further.
The council voted eight to five to adopt the resolution in favor of a pedestrian mall and sent the plan back to committee for more work.
Council member Andrea Jenkins, who represents the neighborhood, was one of the dissenting votes. She’s been an advocate for moving the project forward and said she would not support any delays.
“It completely disregards thousands of hours of community engagement, of staff time, of staff recommendation,” Jenkins said.
Several local residents and protesters had asked the council to block construction. Community members involved in the upkeep of the current memorial said they don’t want the city interfering in the square.
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Minneapolis operations officer, and other staff say it’s time to update the square’s infrastructure, in line with feedback from some residents and business owners who say they want a change.
“George Floyd Square needs to be re-envisioned … both to honor the memory of George Floyd and to really have the area that people live in be vibrant and also respectful of the events of the murder of George Floyd,” Kelliher said.
Some residents and business owners also want construction.
Dwight Alexander is the co-owner of Smoke in the Pit, a barbeque restaurant in the square. He said he hopes for some kind of development in the square.
“We want the best for this neighborhood. We want to see the new development,” Alexander said. “Anytime you get something new in the city, everybody will come see it.”
City staff on the project had urged the council to approve construction plans. The roads at the intersection, at more than 60 years old, were slated for renovation; the city wanted to replace lead pipes underneath, as well.
Mayor Jacob Frey said he was frustrated by the vote.
“The council continues to kick the can down the road. We have done extensive engagement, we talked to community members,” Frey said. “People in the community need change. They need to see progress.”
Project staff speaking at the city council meeting said the council’s vote could push back any work on the square. They had aimed to start construction in the summer of 2025, but said the delay in approval could end up delaying groundbreaking.
History of George Floyd Square
Residents who are pushing back say construction will erase the community-run memorial already standing — along with the ongoing chapter of protest history it represents.
Since 2020, several local residents have led a protest at the site, holding daily community meetings and regular events. For a year after Floyd’s murder, they occupied barricaded streets around the intersection.
The city took down the barricades and reopened the streets to traffic in 2021, but community members remain the primary organizers of the square’s activities: a clothing swap, thousands of offerings left by visitors and iconic works of protest art and memorials.
Jeanelle Austin runs Rise and Remember, an organization that preserves art and offerings left in the square. She’s collected thousands of items that people have left at the square: stuffed animals, artwork, letters, religious sculptures. Once, she picked up a bassinet. Austin learned later that a mother had placed it at the memorial in memory of her child who had passed away — pain she connected to the grief in the square.
Austin doesn’t think city staff understand the weight of the memorial she helps maintain.
“What they don’t get to see — what I get to see — is the fingerprints of the five to ten thousand people who’ve come and laid something that’s a piece of their love, that’s a piece of their heart,” Austin said.
Austin said the stakes are too high to rush the process.
“If you get it wrong, you will not get a second chance,” she said. “Why do people think that we should have something in four years? That is mind boggling to me.”
Austin is part of a community group pushing the city to consider an alternative plan. They’re asking the city to give residents a year to come up with their own plan for road construction and street design.
That alternative plan got some traction in earlier city council discussions. Council member Jason Chavez agreed with protesters’ calls to hold off on construction and instead invest in the neighborhood through housing or other local needs.
“We’re talking about tearing up a street without talking about the investments that 38th Street deserves and needs,” Chavez said. “I think there is a way to address the concerns that community members have.”
But some council members agreed with city staff, saying that surrounding roads are more than 60 years old and have lead pipes underneath.
The city also says it needs to do construction before more work on George Floyd Square. The city’s vision involves eventually working with the Floyd family on a permanent memorial and working with a local organization to redevelop the old Speedway gas station, currently dubbed the People’s Way.
Council member Andrea Jenkins has been advocating for more investment along the 38th Street corridor since before Floyd was killed. She said road construction has long been a need.
“It’s really important that we invest in this community to demonstrate that we do recognize the disinvestments that created the conditions that led to that murder, but also to lay a foundation so that we can create a place of social justice,” Jenkins said at a council meeting last month. “I think this intersection has an opportunity to do just that.”
