North Loop Park Getting Upgrades In 2025, May Become ‘Smart Park’
In the three years since the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board took out a section of parking lot on North 3rd Street and turned it into a mini park, it’s been mostly a grass field with a few small trees and lawn furniture.
Now, though, the Park Board has funding set aside to make big improvements starting in 2025.
In concept drawings shared with the North Loop neighborhood, we can see the direction they’re heading. They envision dividing the park into three broad spaces, including a plaza near Third Street that could accommodate food trucks.
Plaza along N 3rd Street
There would also be a lawn with a small stage toward the back of the park, capable of hosting movie nights and live music.
And running diagonally between those two spaces would be a meadow with short grasses and pollinator plants tracing the path of Bassett Creek below the park.
“A lot of people don’t know that Bassett Creek actually flows in a tunnel right below this park,” said MPRB assistant superintendent Michael Schroeder. “And that’s why it’s parkland, there’s no building here.” 
The meadow would include stepping stones and other timber features to help visitors cross it.
“We will have a first phase started next spring,” said Schroeder, noting that the work will take about six months. “But we won’t be able to do everything in one phase.”
One additional thing that Schroeder would like to see implemented in this first phase: technology that helps the park mow its own grass and keep track of its own litter collection.
“If we can find a way to do it, we would like to make this Minneapolis’s first ‘smart park,’” he said. He described a mower that’s “like a Roomba but it’s a lawnmower,” along with remote-controlled litter containers.
“When they fill up, one moves out and another one moves into its place,” he said. “Or if we have an event near the stage, they gravitate towards where the people are in the park. And then they move back into their normal place during the day.”
Schroeder is meeting with the North Loop Neighborhood Association’s Parks Committee to help decide which features should be added first.
By Mike Binkley, North Loop volunteer
