Fight for the Roof Depot
WITH East Phillips Neighborhood Institute
The East Phillips neighborhood is located in the heart of South Minneapolis. With some 3,000 residents, it is a geographically small but mighty neighborhood. East Phillips is simultaneously one of the most racially diverse, under-resourced, and polluted neighborhoods in the entire State of Minnesota.
When the Roof Depot site, an empty 230,000 square foot warehouse went on sale over a decade ago, the community immediately jumped at the opportunity to purchase the site and develop it into a community resilience hub that would house an indoor urban farm to meet the needs of this neighborhood.
But, the City of Minneapolis had other plans: to evoke eminent domain, seize the site, and demolish it to expand their Public Works Facility by constructing a large truck yard that would have increased emissions and release toxic arsenic into the air.
EPNI — collaborating with a passionate cohort of individuals and organizations — doubled down on advocating for the community’s vision and preventing further pollution in East Phillips. In the 10 years following the city’s purchase of the site, EPNI sued the city, door knocked across Minneapolis, protested loudly in city council chambers, and leaned on relationships with all sorts of organizations.
On February 21, 2023 — in the midst of a massive snowstorm and six days before demolition was scheduled to begin — a group of community members and supporters staged a peaceful occupation at the Roof Depot site. Much of the artwork that has been deployed in this effort—large paper mache vegetables, cardboard props, hand-painted banners, screen-printed bandanas—all came from our studio space.
FEATURED IN:
Sahan Journal