Former Fuji-Ya will yield its riverfront spot to even older landmarks

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The remains of the long-abandoned Fuji-Ya restaurant will be torn down and the slope beneath it peeled away to make way for a new park featuring unearthed ruins beneath them as part of the latest Mississippi River redevelopment plan.
The remains of the long-abandoned Fuji-Ya restaurant will be torn down and the slope beneath it peeled away to make way for a new park featuring unearthed ruins beneath them as part of the latest Mississippi River redevelopment plan.

According to Minneapolis Park Watch, The Water Works Park project will transform an inaccessible hill between West River Parkway and First Street S. — where Fuji-Ya has sat vacant since 1991 — into a park whose centerpiece will be the ruins of a former grain mill and the gate house of the original Minneapolis city water works.

It’s just one part of a long-term overhaul to the Central Riverfront Regional Park that runs along the riverbanks from the 35W bridge upstream to Plymouth Av., and includes or abuts the St. Anthony Main, Guthrie Theater and Mill City Museum areas where numerous apartments and condos have sprung up.

“Now that we have all these new residents down there, people are loving the park to death,” said Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board president Liz Wielinski. “We need to give it a face lift.”

Design for the Water Works project is being paid for and managed by… Read More >>