NPS Mississippi National River and Recreation Area

Coldwater Spring Restoration and Site Development

Minneapolis, MN

The Bureau of Mines Twin Cities Research Center occupied a 27-acre campus within the boundaries of historic Fort Snelling in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The Twin Cities Research Center campus officially closed in 1996 when the U.S. Bureau of Mines was closed and its functions were transferred to the National Park Service in 2010, as a part of the Mississippi National River & Recreation Area (NPS MISS). Closure of the campus left 12 buildings, parking lots, roads and site infrastructure abandoned. The site also contains a historic Coldwater Spring and Spring House, a natural spring with important cultural significance that once served as the water supply to Fort Snelling and the City of Minneapolis and a ceremonial site to the Dakota People. 

Design and planning services included: vision and programming, site master planning, site reclamation/restoration and construction documents for the significant restoration for the project, returning the former brownfield industrial campus site to a prairie/oak savanna condition.

This project included demolition of the buildings, hazardous materials abatement and the removal of roads, parking and site infrastructure, daylighting of the spring fed Coldwater Creek, new walking paths with pedestrian bridges, grading, signage, wetland creation and site restoration. Small remnants of the most significant building on the site were preserved in place and modified to serve as an interpretive area near the entrance to the site. A series of on-site workshops with planning, resources and historical staff NPS were facilitated, developing the project goals and vision, a series of alternatives and the selected final master plan. The Master Plan included a 3-D computer simulation depicting the entire demolition process through complete restoration, providing a visual tool to help communicate the long-term process and outcome to the public and stakeholders. The NPS is working with a large group of volunteers continuing the restoration process. 

FiLL p.l.l.c.  principal Phil Hendricks Jr. ASLA served as the: principal-in-charge, task order manager, lead planner and landscape architect while at a previous firm (EDAW/AECOM), as a subconsultant on a 5-year NPS Midwest AE Services IDIQ primed by Schemmer Associates.