This article is part of a larger report, “Bring Back 6th: A Collective Vision for Reparative Justice & the Future of the Northside.”
For decades, the community has spearheaded the efforts to make Olson Memorial Highway a safer and more comfortable roadway. Neighborhood groups and organizations, working in collaboration with community members, advocate for positive change to the corridor. In recent years, Our Streets has joined in these efforts, launching the Bring Back 6th Campaign in 2021 with the Harrison and Heritage Park Neighborhood Associations and other community partners. Through various engagement efforts and strategies, community voices have been centered on the vision of a restored 6th Avenue.
Creating the Vision
Community members who live near the Olson Memorial Highway corridor today envision:
- Streets that are safer, more comfortable, sustainable, and that create opportunity for enjoyment and socialization.
- Long-term affordable housing, local jobs, and wealth building opportunities. This includes retail corridors to support new and existing local businesses on 6th Avenue, Glenwood Avenue, and Plymouth Avenue.
- New amenities, green spaces, and community spaces for youth, adults, and elders alike. Ideas for community amenities range from groceries and markets, restaurants, bakeries, and cafes to a hospital, hardware store, and gift shops to sports fields, outdoor pavilion.amphitheater, and a pool.
- Inclusive and culturally diverse public spaces for all community members, particularly youth and older adults.
- Diverse shops and services, accessible by walking, biking, and transit.
Types of Engagement
Residents and community leaders formed the Bring Back 6th Coalition to bring this vision to life. Resident and community perspectives were collected between August 2024 and June 2025 though:
- Community surveys
- Doorknocking and tabling at community events
- One-to-one conversations
- “Home is Here” community conversations with the respective Harrison and Heritage Park neighborhoods
- Imagine 6th public events
- Design Week with various stakeholder meetings and public open houses
We heard from many people and organizations throughout design week on their experience along Olson Memorial Highway and what they’d like to see in their neighborhood in the future.
Residents engaging with Our Streets’ Bring Back 6th mobile museum at Imagine 6th event.
MnDOT employees joined Toole Design on a bike tour of Olson Memorial Highway to see the dangers up close.
People gathered at the Home is Here event, talking about anti-displacement strategies in their neighborhood.
Attendees were able to share feedback with Toole Design in multiple ways.
Volunteers went doornocking in North Minneapolis to engage with residents about the future of Olson Memorial Highway.
Our Streets staff sharing community visions for Olson Memorial Highway at Heritage Park National Night Out.
Community and Stakeholder Input
Residents and stakeholder input was collected through various activities and discussion formats during community events. Design Week was an important avenue to gather input and included open houses, one-on-one interviews, and focus groups with agencies, public representatives, neighborhood groups, and associations, community members, and other stakeholders. From all of these conversations, six consistent themes emerged to inform this project.
This input will help support residents in achieving the community vision that prevents displacement, aligns with partner and agency goals, and realizes community, health, wealth, accessibility, safety, and resilience. Engagement continues to happen at every stage of this process, including after the report was published. This ensures that residents will directly shape the project and outcomes as it moves forward.
Implementing anti-displacement and community-oriented policies and decision-making processes at the beginning, and carrying them out through and beyond the final project construction, will enable existing residents to meaningfully decide on a safe and inclusive plan for the future of the corridor. Having a clear understanding of the community priorities is critical when working with various agencies to identify a preferred design alternative and appropriate policies that serve the community.
Top Community Priorities
Future Engagement
In addition to these community priorities, residents have also expressed common frustrations with past engagement and concerns about future engagement.
To ensure equitable engagement processes that prioritize community voices, agencies should engage residents early and throughout the process. Agencies should address residents opposition and also be diligent about transparency with community members by establishing clear project timelines, sending mailed notices (not just digital), and providing accessible meetings (with childcare, translation services, transportation, and more).
Community feedback will continue to be collected through public events, doorknocking, surveys, and other engagement methods to understand what design solutions best resonate with residents.
Residents and community members can expect to be canvassed about how to continue advocating for a community preferred alternative. Volunteers, staff members, and partners will work to meet residents where they are to elicit feedback and survey on the design concepts, how to get involved, and contact decision-makers for this project.
Learn more about the campaign to Bring Back 6th.
Once called the “Beale Street of Minneapolis,” the old Near-Northside was an integral Black and Jewish community that was destroyed in 1939 for the construction of Olson Memorial Highway, a low-trafficked highway “to nowhere” that has been polluting the neighborhood ever since.