History

Over its history, the site at this highly trafficked intersection has been shaped more by infrastructure than by people. Once cut through by Minnehaha Avenue, this curious slice of the city reflects decades of road realignments and traffic decisions that prioritized vehicle throughput over safety, access, and neighborhood use.

The existing one-story restaurant building was designed to function within these constraints, optimized for fast, high-volume turnover at a dangerous intersection. While functional from an auto-oriented perspective, the result was a site defined by congestion, confusing crossings, and underutilized land at one of the neighborhood’s most visible corners.

To many observers, the site appeared permanently compromised: difficult to fix, risky to redevelop, and unlikely to attract the kind of investment needed to meaningfully change conditions on the ground.

The Vision

Redesign saw something different.

From the beginning, Redesign understood this site as both a challenge and an opportunity. Not because the solution was obvious, but because the need was undeniable. The intersection’s safety issues, fragmented public realm, and inefficient land use were not accidents; they were the cumulative result of infrastructure decisions made over generations.

Redesign acquired the site with the understanding that meaningful change would require capacity, expertise, and sustained advocacy. Dangerous traffic patterns, legacy road alignments, and jurisdictional complexity meant that redevelopment could not move forward without years of engagement with public agencies, technical analysis, and persistent pressure for improvement.

As a community development corporation rooted in the neighborhood, Redesign brought something most developers could not: deep contextual knowledge and the willingness to stay at the table long after quick wins had passed. The long-term vision is to transform an auto-oriented, single-use parcel into a place that better serves the community, ideally through a multi-story, mixed-use development with housing, improved pedestrian access, and a site design that works with, rather than against, the surrounding neighborhood.

Community Mission & Impact

Franklin Station illustrates one of the most important and least visible roles of Community Development Corporations: advocating for public investment where the market alone will not.

Fixing dangerous intersections, realigning infrastructure, and unlocking developable land takes time. Often years. Sometimes decades. It requires organizations with the endurance to keep pushing long after attention has shifted elsewhere and the credibility to insist that communities deserve the same level of safety, investment, and care as any other part of the city.

By acquiring this site, Redesign committed to being that long-term steward. The organization’s work here is not just about what will eventually be built, but about changing the conditions that determine what is possible. Through sustained advocacy, Redesign helps translate community needs into infrastructure solutions, turning a site many had written off into a viable future asset.

While the next chapter of Franklin Station is still being shaped, Redesign’s involvement ensures this highly visible corner will not remain frozen in an auto-dominated past. Instead, it is positioned to become safer, more productive, and more reflective of the neighborhood’s long-term goals, demonstrating that systems can change when communities have institutions willing to fight for them over the long term.