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Mississippi River Overlook & Connection Beacon

Mississippi River Overlook & Connection Beacon

The Mississippi River overlook (26th Ave. North) is part of the RiverFirst vision to transformation an 11-mile stretch of previous industrial Mississippi riverfront properties into accessible community amenities. Led by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) to reconnect people to the Mississippi River and most notably, African American communities along the river corridor. As such, this project is situated in a park at the end of a new extension of the Great Northern Greenway Link, designed to improved biking and walking connectivity in North Minneapolis.

Working with landscape architects TenxTen, EOR served as the civil/water resource engineers and provided additional eco-restoration consulting services given the shoreline nature of this project. The project team collaborated with Black professionals in the design, incorporating contributions from local Black youth artists through Juxtaposition Arts in the creation of this oval-shaped, river overlook, that centers around a leaning 35-foot-tall, illuminated beacon, a symbolic connection to other parks and to the public across the river.  

Client Benefits

  • Promoting diverse native habitat vegetation along the shoreline
  • Bioengineered riverbank protection to reduce erosion into the river.
  • Stormwater management included a gathering lawn to filter stormwater runoff filtration that also directed direct drainage away from the river.

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