A Master Plan to Remake Rochester, MN, Comes to Life

By their very scope and scale, urban master planning and infrastructure projects involve long-term vision—and lots of patience—because they can take decades to realize. Such a vision is playing out in Rochester, MN, where a placemaking-focused development plan has reached the halfway point of its 20-year horizon. Perkins Eastman designed this plan to knit the renowned Mayo Clinic’s 40-building footprint more holistically within the city and the life of its residents and its millions of yearly visitors.

The Destination Medical Center (DMC) is a public-private partnership that was formed in 2013 to execute a $5.6 billion economic development initiative, the largest in Minnesota’s history. It funds public infrastructure to attract private development in support of Mayo’s continued expansion, and it hired Perkins Eastman in 2015 to guide that growth. “The Perkins Eastman document sets out a vision for how to heal a city that has suffered from the urban illnesses of the late 20th century, such as too many cars and surface parking lots, too little density and diversity, and too few gathering places,” Thomas Fisher wrote in an article for the Minnesota AIA when the plan was adopted.

The plan named six districts in Rochester’s square-mile core that were ripe for development, along with improvements to their public realms.

The prominent Minneapolis landscape architecture firm Coen + Partners brought to life the Perkins Eastman plan for the public realm at Rochester’s Heart of the City, with features such as accessible, variable-height seating and tree-lined promenades. Photos © AB Photography/Courtesy Destination Medical Center

In the words of DMC Executive Director Patrick Seeb, Rochester’s new parks, promenades, plazas, and waterfronts will “hardwire” the city, blurring the boundaries between each of its elements. Perkins Eastman “really helped the community think about how we develop the city as Mayo continues to grow,” he says. He points to evidence of the plan’s success thus far in Mayo Clinic’s 2023 announcement of a planned $5 billion expansion. “The expansion fulfills Mayo’s commitment to the Destination Medical Center plan … to maintain Rochester as a global healthcare destination,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

The Heart of the City was the first district to be addressed. Centered on the Gonda Building, Mayo’s formidable outpatient clinic, a new, pedestrian-focused plaza features curbless streets that slow traffic because pedestrians and cars share the same plane; sculpture and other large-scale art installations; wide, shaded promenades; accessible seating; and a water feature surrounding the city’s beloved Peace Fountain. This T-shaped public space forms a cohesive link between the clinic and the area’s existing hotels, shops, and restaurants, forming a more appealing destination for residents as well as Mayo patients and their families.

Left: “A Not So Private Sky” by sculptor Inigo Manglano-Ovali centers the new, thriving pedestrian plaza at the Heart of the City. Right: A linear installation at Heart of the City invites people to walk on water—a huge hit with children.
Photos © AB Photography/Courtesy Destination Medical Center

A few blocks away, the new Discovery Square is a “life-science innovation district” with new lab buildings to support discoveries and innovations to enhance Mayo Clinic research programs and also provide an interdisciplinary platform to attract commercial biotech and health sciences companies. In this respect, Mayo’s healthcare providers will be collaborating with private industry to advance new medical technologies and treatment research.

Discovery Square encourages scientists, physicians, entrepreneurs, and students to congregate—and innovate. An adjoining promenade called Discovery Walk forms a direct connection to the Mayo Clinic at Heart of the City.
© Perkins Eastman

Discovery Walk was designed as a linear park, which serves as a multipurpose public space that connects the Heart of the City and Mayo Clinic with Discovery Square and, farther south, Soldier’s Memorial Field. © Perkins Eastman

The Perkins Eastman master plan is also guiding Downtown Waterfront improvements along the Zumbro River where the city’s civic and government centers line each of its banks, which until now have turned their backs to the river. The improvements include waterfront plazas at each site, giving the river more prominence and a larger footprint for public enjoyment. The newly activated public realm is expected to attract more than $300 million in new development, according to city officials.

The Zumbro river will gain new prominence with activated green space across 5.5 acres along its banks, including large plazas and bridges that connect the city and county government center, bottom foreground, and the arts and civic center, above it and to the right.  © Perkins Eastman

St. Mary’s Place, described as an outdoor “great room” west of downtown, is now underway at Mayo Clinic’s St. Mary’s Hospital. “Perkins Eastman imagined a very dramatic kind of new presence and a new entrance to St. Mary’s,” Seeb says, calling it “a new gateway into the community” for both pedestrians and transit.

St. Mary’s Place is envisioned as a gateway to the rest of the city, both for pedestrians and transit. © Perkins Eastman

North of the Heart of the City, Central Station will anchor a new mixed-use, multimodal transit hub in the coming years, where a future high-speed-rail line would connect to Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the Twin Cities’ airport—a boon to people arriving for care at Mayo Clinic who currently must drive more than 80 miles to get there.

Central Park will greet commuters at a large new “transport terrace,” a multimodal transit hub for Rochester.
© Perkins Eastman

It’s extremely exciting and gratifying to see the progress that’s been made. The new vigor that’s come into the city since this plan was adopted has been phenomenal. And though it’s taking a generation to fully realize, it’s a nano second, relatively speaking, in the overall history of the city, and its impact will last far longer.