The Minneapolis City Council is set to vote Thursday on a concept for the future of Nicollet Avenue.

The empty K-Mart building on Lake Street caught fire last October and was demolished the following month. Now, city leaders want to redesign the area to reconnect Nicollet Avenue.

Out of the four concepts first brought to the table in March, Minneapolis Public Works is backing option one as the plan to go forward with as an effort to bring back what many people say is the heart of the city.

Plans take shape, as city leaders reimagine former south Minneapolis Kmart site

In the concept, the new Nicollet Avenue would go right through the middle of the old K-Mart. If approved, option one would make it so the road would be open to all types of vehicles heading into downtown.

A green space would be a big part of the project too, bringing gardens and a place to play sports and games to what’s now an empty parking lot.

Minneapolis city leaders discuss future of former Kmart site at Thursday meeting

Public works also says bicycle and pedestrian safety would be ramped up in the area in the coming years, as opening Nicolett back up will bring a lot of traffic back to the streets in that area.

The vote on what’s next for the location is on the agenda for Thursday’s City Council meeting, which begins at 9:30 a.m.

If approved, the project may start as soon as next year.

MINNEAPOLIS — A little girl is in the hospital after she says a kindergarten classmate gave her something suspicious.

Rachel Hodges says her daughter, Da’Kyah, was shaking, having trouble walking and acting bizarrely Monday.

Officials from Nellie Stone Johnson Elementary School in Minneapolis called Hodges to say Da’Kyah had thrown up and had what looked like seizures.

“She didn’t know who I was,” Hodges said. “She didn’t know my mom. She has a twin, she didn’t know him.”

Hodges says after emergency room doctors told her it wasn’t a seizure, the episodes of odd behavior continued on and off.

She says they include hallucinations and mood changes.

“I’ve never even seen a child act that way,” Hodges said. “And it’s just sad, because she’s scared of me, and I’m her mom.”

Da’Kyah says a girl in her class gave her what she said was candy.

“But she pranked me,” Da’Kyah said. “After I ate them, she said, ‘Ha, just kidding. They’re poisonous candies.’ My body was hurting and yeah, it was scary.”

Da’Kyah described what she ate as colored pills.

“The police looked in her eyes,” Hodges said. “They seen that she was dilated. Her eyes were crossed and bugged really big, and they knew she had to have ingested something she shouldn’t have.”

A Minneapolis police spokesperson said, “In accordance with normal procedure for processing a report involving young children, this case has been referred to Child Protective Services (CPS).  MPD will continue to partner with CPS as this case moves forward.”

Hodges says they’re waiting on blood tests to hopefully identify what gave Da’Kyah and her family such a scare.

WCCO has called and emailed Minneapolis Public Schools several times this week, but hasn’t received a response.

Jen Nagel, Minneapolis, was elected May 4 to serve a six-year term as bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod. The election took place during the synod assembly, May 2-4 at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Ramsey, Minn.

Nagel was elected on the fifth ballot, with 316 votes. Natalia Terfa, a pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Brooklyn Park, Minn., received 146 votes.

The bishop-elect has served as a pastor of University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis since 2015. Previously she served as pastor of Salem English Lutheran Church in Minneapolis (2003 to 2015) and as a teaching staff coordinator at Holden Village, Chelan, Wash. (2011).

Find out more.

Read more about: