Friends of the Riverfront

This aerial photo shows how an elevated green roof field could be built over parking in front of DeLaSalle High School. "Elevated Green Roof Field" proposed for Nicollet Island Third Ward City Council Member Diane Hofstede presented a new proposal for an elevated green roof field in front of DeLaSalle High School on Nicollet Island at the Minneapolis City Council Zoning and Planning Committee September 14.

The design has the support of Tom Fisher, dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota, she said. Hofstede cited other fields built over parking lots in California and Washington, D.C. to say that the design uses a "proven technology."

The alternative site to DeLaSalle's proposal for a field built over a street and public parkland behind the school is "resolving a major concern," Hofstede said. It would allow one of only three remaining public streets that cross the island, Grove Street, to stay open, and would not require three tennis courts, which she said were built at taxpayers expense for $150,000, to be demolished.

The elevated green roof field would be built mostly on property DeLaSalle owns, over the parking lot areas that now dominate the school's Hennepin Avenue front. Space between the field and the school building would allow light to reach the school's first floor, and handicapped access to the field would be via the school's second floor. A corner of the field would project above West Island Avenue, where the road dips to pass under the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. Hofstede emphasized the design is preliminary. Could the scoreboard could be mounted on the back of the Grain Belt Beer sign, or additional spectator seating built on the roof of the school?

The elevated green roof field would cost $1.5 to $2 million more than the high school's current proposal, she estimated. However, the school's estimate for its current plan does not include the cost of replacing regional parkland, which is likely to run in the millions of dollars. In the 1980s, taxpayers paid more than $1 million for the land on which DeLaSalle proposes to build its stadium.

During a April 14, 2005 mayoral debate, Mayor R.T. Rybak said he had proposed to DeLaSalle the same alternative site. "We’ve got to think about some other alternatives. The first one I put out to them was to try to move that [stadium] to the front, where the parking lot is. Wouldn’t it be nice, to have a field there instead of parked cars?"

After Hofstede's presentation, a bare quorom of the Zoning and Planning Committee voted to reverse the unanimous Aug. 8 Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission denial of DeLaSalle's application for a Certificate of Appropriateness required for developments in the St. Anthony Falls Historic District.