A
court ruling blocking a
proposed development last week has put the fate of a key site in the renaissance at Minneapolis' downtown riverfront back in the hands of the Minneapolis park board.
Members of an ad hoc group have been working toward this moment, studying the past and considering the future of the original Fuji-Ya restaurant property. A meeting between the 30-member unofficial committee and park officials is set for July 23.
To say the late restaurateur Reiko Weston was ahead of her time in 1963 when she built the Fuji-Ya on the foundation of an old mill next to St. Anthony Falls is an understatement. People considered pioneers of riverfront redevelopment were latecomers by comparison, getting projects going a decade or two later. Weston actually bought the property even earlier, in 1958, says Rhys MacPherson, an architect at
MS&R and a member of the ad hoc group. He has assembled a timeline showing how the site has been used since 1870. "It has been a process of continuous change," he says.
Now a narrow wedge of sloping riverbank between First Street and W. River Parkway,
the site appears to contain little beyond the spare white walls of the former Fuji-Ya above a 19th-century limestone base. But below ground, says MacPherson, are four stories of
fascinating mill infrastructure--some of it collapsed due to disrepair on the Fuji Ya's roof.
Weston sited her restaurant well, MacPherson says: You can hear the roar of the falls and gaze at bridge upon bridge, up and down the river.
Source: Rhys MacPherson
Writer: Chris Steller