National Register of Historic Places

Cedar Square West

Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota
Listed
December 28, 2010
Type
District
Period
Listed
Ref No.
10001090

About this property

Riverside Plaza is a modernist and brutalist apartment complex designed by Ralph Rapson that opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1973. Situated on the edge of downtown Minneapolis in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and next to both the University of Minnesota's West Bank and Augsburg University, the site contains the 39-story McKnight Building, the tallest structure outside of the city's central business district. Initially known as Cedar Square West, the complex was renamed when an investor group bought it out of receivership in 1988. Riverside Plaza is composed of six buildings and has 1,303 residential units, making it the main feature of the city's Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. The buildings form a series of landscaped courtyards, featuring fountains, a clock tower, terraces, playgrounds, and various other amenities. Each building has a different height, intended to reflect the diversity of its population. Rapson was inspired by the time he spent in European cities, where people of different ages and levels of wealth coexisted in close quarters. The area was developed with support from the U.S. federal government's New Town-In Town program, and was originally planned to be part of a utopian design that would have seen 12,500 units spread across four neighborhoods housing a total of 30,000 people. Cedar Square West was the first project in the country to receive Title VIII funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and it is the larger of only two New Towns-In Town that ultimately qualified for that program.

Location

1600 S Sixth St
Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota
44.96094, -93.24840

Categories

ARCHITECTURECOMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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The Soldiers
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Native Heritage
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Settlement
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The Community
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Nearby Historic Sites

Franklin Branch Library
Industrial
0.4 mi
Milwaukee Avenue Historic District
Listed
0.4 mi
New Main-Augsburg Seminary
Industrial
0.5 mi
Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery
Early Republic
0.8 mi
Strutwear Knitting Company Building
Industrial
0.8 mi

Questions about this property

When was Cedar Square West listed on the National Register?

Cedar Square West was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 28, 2010.

What type of historic resource is Cedar Square West?

Cedar Square West is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Cedar Square West?

The period of significance for Cedar Square West is recorded as the listed era.

Can I research the history near Cedar Square West?

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