Golden Valley Wants to “Reinvent” Its Downtown
Golden Valley is exploring ways to reinvent its downtown area. The city council recently approved a $35,000 study to look into making improvements in the quadrant where Golden Valley Road intersects Winnetka Avenue.
It’s being called a “golden opportunity” to reshape Golden Valley.
The improvements would include renovations and redevelopment in some areas, and better bicycle and pedestrian connections in other locations.
“Are there bike facilities that should be installed on streets even on some of the private areas where people can leave their bikes and walk around?” Golden Valley planning manager Jason Zimmerman said. “There’s been a push to kind of discourage the use of cars. How can we get people to leave their cars and do more walking?”
Four quadrants, four areas of focus
There are four quadrants in downtown Golden Valley and each one will have a different focus. Some will get immediate attention and others might not see any change for a couple decades.
The southwest quadrant is home to the aging Golden Valley shopping center. That spot could receive a makeover in the future.
“First ring suburbs are all facing the same kind of time line in terms of needing to kind of reinvent,” Zimmerman said. “The buildings are aging, the structures aged. So as they do that we are seeing more and more of these kind of nodes of activity popping up. We’ve seen it in Edina, St. Louis Park. We are going to look around the first ring of the Twin Cities and see what other cities are doing.”
One barrier for Golden Valley is Minnesota Highway 55, which separates the city.
Officials are exploring the possibility of a new pedestrian bridge over the road that would be a landmark gateway into downtown.
They have looked at bridge concepts in the Netherlands and China.
