Minneapolis Inks Lease for New Safety Center

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minneapolis will open a new "community safety center" at East Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue later this year, officials announced recently.

Many details on what will in the center are still being worked out, as is the opening date, which appears to be behind the city's original schedule.

What's new is the address — 2228 E. Lake St. — the facility's hours of operation, and some of the services it will contain.

The philosophy behind the facility is to bolster community safety beyond traditional policing, by bringing social services and specialists, as well as police, to a stretch of Lake Street that has seen homelessness, drug use and crime become something of a new normal in recent years.

The building is expected to be temporary while the city develops a permanent and expanded community safety center adjoining the future Third Precinct police station at 2655 Minnehaha Ave. That facility will serve the broader south Minneapolis area.

Both buildings are replacing facilities that burned in riots following George Floyd's murder by a police officer in 2020; the original Third Precinct station was overrun and set ablaze by a mob, and the storefront Midtown Safety Center at East Lake Street and Chicago Avenue also burned in the unrest.

Lake Street details

The new center at 2228 E. Lake St. — in the shadow of Minnehaha Avenue and the light rail overpasses — will occupy space rented by the city, according to a briefing officials provided to a City Council committee last week. The cost and other terms of the lease had not been finalized and were not public yet.

Mayor Jacob Frey's administration had previously indicated the facility would be open early this summer. But in a recent interview Public Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette said his "best guess" was "by the end of the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter" of this year.

It be open five days a week: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Tuesday and Fridays, and 11 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. The evening hours are intended to reflect the walk-in center's ability to serve residents after normal working hours.

The entire list of workers who will staff the building —and exactly what services will be available to people who walk in —hasn't been worked out yet, officials said, but some are known.

The building will include 311 agents, crime prevention specialists and police. "Community navigators," a representative of the city attorney's office, and behavioral crisis workers are also envisioned.