Minneapolis City Council to vote on George Floyd Square construction

The Minneapolis City Council is expected to vote Thursday on whether or not to rebuild streets surrounding George Floyd Square, where city police murdered Floyd in 2020.

The construction proposal for the intersection at 38th Street South and Chicago Avenue drafted by city staff and based on community input, would rebuild the blocks of both streets that touch the intersection. The new roads would be open to cars and buses, and add bike lanes. 

The plan also calls for widened sidewalks, designated green spaces and room set aside for art and memorials. 

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 are pushing back.

They 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.

“George Floyd Square matters because of the way in which the people use the space, and the city is trying to systematically erase that,” said Jeanelle Austin, executive director of Rise and Remember, an organization that preserves memorial offerings at the site.

Austin has 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.

Other local residents, and several business owners in the square, have asked the council to move ahead with the city’s plan.

Dwight Alexander is one of the owners of Smoke in the Pit, a barbeque restaurant in the square. He said business has slowed since Floyd’s murder. He says he hears from old customers who don’t know the streets and businesses are open, and he doesn’t get as much foot traffic coming in the door as he used to.

He hopes new streets would alert people that the square is open.

“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.”

But 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.” 

If the vote passes, city staff will draw up final plans. Construction would start in the summer of 2025 and likely end in 2026. City staff said they would wait to break ground until after May 25, marking five years since Floyd’s murder.

If the proposal fails, the money for construction won’t be in the budget, delaying any construction — and the later work on a memorial and construction at the People’s Way site — for at least a year.