Ray Harris
As told to John Rosengren
Ray Harris developed Orchestra Hall, Greenway Gables, and the Douglas School townhomes, but he’s best known for Calhoun Square. Though 92 and confined to a wheelchair, he says, “above the waist, I’m still going 200 miles per hour.” He spoke to us in his sixth-floor apartment in The Kenwood, overlooking downtown. It’s decorated with books and artwork, including three sculptures and a painting of his hero, Don Quixote.
The Idea
It wasn’t Uptown at the time; it was Hennepin-Lake. Back then, it was four square blocks with Schlampp Furs, Lunds, a couple of restaurants like Rainbow Cafe. That was it. I helped set up the nonprofit Hennepin Lake Improvement Association, which became the Uptown Association, and I was the first head of it.
In 1976, the school board wanted to sell the old site of the Calhoun School [then a vacant lot at Lake and Girard] so it could get back on the tax roll. At the same time, the city council was pushing for Hennepin-Lake to be developed into the first commercial node outside of downtown. I figured, “What the hell; I’ll submit a proposal.”
Martha and Doug Head became silent partners. She was head of the Junior League at the time, and he was a former attorney general of Minnesota. I became the figurehead.
There were five proposals: (1) a free parking lot, (2) a community center, (3) a Greek retirement home, (4) a thematic single-story mall, and (5) ours. The first three didn’t meet the tax specifications. The city council and school board selected ours, subject to our being able to get the financing.
This was all done when interest rates were at 18 percent. It’s a miracle we were able to do it. We cobbled together six types of financing. We sold the banks on guaranteeing revenue bonds. The city put up $2.4 million in tax increment financing. The contractor, Kraus-Anderson, deferred payment for five years. Mayor Don Fraser, [10th Ward alderwoman] Sally Howard, and I flew out to Washington to get an Urban Development Action loan to build more parking spaces in the ramp. We were only required to provide about 200 parking spaces, but the community wanted a lot more. There was no other parking in the area—what was on the street was totally inadequate. The federal money allowed us to build 550 spaces. The ramp was critical to the success of everything in Uptown.
Two images of Calhoun square one outside and on inside
A bustling Calhoun Square meant a bustling Uptown.
The Fight
A Twin Cities Reader article from the summer of 1981 headlined “Who is Ray Harris and why are people saying terrible things about him?” compared Harris to Robert Moses: “He seems far too cunning to be squandering his talents at Hennepin-Lake. At least that’s the consensus of the estimated 250 people who gathered June 9 on the site of Harris’s planned commercial Shangri-La.”
We had hundreds and hundreds of meetings. I went to every goddamn one. The only ones who come to the meetings are those against you. We had an equal number of proponents as opponents, but the opponents were louder. One loud person had a beautiful Irish setter that pooped a lot in the vacant school lot. She said, “Where am I going to walk my dog?”
I wrestled at Stanford. I consider everything a sort of competition. The opposition couldn’t get me mad at any of the meetings. The fact I didn’t get upset upset them all the more. When I see something that ought to happen, I decide to do it and persist until it happens. That’s my style.
The argument about [increased] traffic was legitimate, but that happens whenever anything is built anywhere. The turnover in the parking ramp was so fast, we had to hire off-duty police to direct traffic. It was also a problem with so many pedestrians crossing the Hennepin-Lake intersection—that screwed up traffic.
The Success
Calhoun Square opened in February 1984 with 65 tenants, including anchors like Figlio, Odegard Books, a handful of high-end women’s clothing stores, a post office, and HealthPartners.
Calhoun Square was a roaring success immediately. It took five years to put together, but once it opened, it became a national model. Developers came from all over the U.S. to see it.
There was no central gathering place in Uptown except our courtyard. That’s why we were successful and St. Anthony Main and Riverplace, which were built about the same time, were not. Our customers came there two, three times a week. The others didn’t have that sort of primary market surrounding them—people close enough to walk to and frequent it. The area was full of professionals with significant disposable income.
It wasn’t supposed to work. Police said if we put benches up, we were going to have people sleeping on them. There were no rules. If it made sense, we did it. We encouraged protests. Every protest that happened began or ended at Hennepin-Lake. It brought people to the area. We started the art fair. The [City of Lakes] Loppet ended at Hennepin-Lake—Calhoun Square became the world’s largest warming house.
We didn’t have to worry about crime. We were open seven days a week, about 10 hours a day. There were constantly people there. Women weren’t afraid to go to Calhoun Square at night. The more people you have around—the right kind of people—the safer it is. The parking ramp was so damn busy, there was no opportunity to commit crimes in the ramp.
The Next Step
Calhoun Square morphed from a charming gathering place into just a place to eat and drink. Other than Kitchen Window, there’s not much retail. The number of boarded-up windows is depressing. There’s practically no daytime activity at Calhoun Square. It no longer draws people from the entire metro area.
Safety is a huge problem. It’s real. But the perception that Uptown is not safe is twice as bad as it really is. People aren’t willing to go there, particularly women. How they’re going to turn around people’s perception is an enormous challenge.
[Northpond Partners], the current owners of Calhoun Square, are in Chicago. Their thinking is, “Let’s fix up the building and get some tenants.” They need a vision. They need someone to step up and lead them. They need a Ray Harris who can pull all of the pieces together.
