Phillips West

Phillips West is the southwestern corner of the Phillips community in South Minneapolis — a diverse, low-income neighborhood of a little over a third of a square mile. It is bounded by East 22nd Street to the north, Lake Street to the south, Chicago Avenue to the east, and I-35W to the west. Just over 5,000 people lived here at the 2020 Census, most of them renting, in apartment buildings, affordable housing complexes, and a smaller number of older houses and duplexes. Abbott Northwestern Hospital sits on the Chicago Avenue edge, mostly across the street in Midtown Phillips, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) stands just across the freeway to the west.

Phillips West shares the core characteristics of the broader Phillips community — racial and ethnic diversity, economic hardship, strong community institutions, and the complicated relationship between a neighborhood that has been historically under-invested and a city that is beginning to pay attention. What distinguishes Phillips West from the other Phillips neighborhoods — Ventura Village, Midtown Phillips, East Phillips — is the mix of institutions inside its lines: the American Swedish Institute and St. Mary's University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus on Park Avenue, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School near Lake Street, and the former Honeywell and Wells Fargo campus along the freeway, which alone covers about 25 of the neighborhood's 245 acres. The blocks where people live are fitted in around them.

Like the rest of Phillips, the land now known as Phillips West was originally Dakota territory. The Phillips community takes its name from Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist — a fitting namesake for a neighborhood that has long been home to people on the margins of American prosperity. The area grew quickly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Industry along the Milwaukee Road tracks drew workers and immigrant families — Scandinavians and Germans among many others — while some of the city's wealthiest families built mansions along Park Avenue.

The neighborhood's best-known building dates from that era. Swan Turnblad, who owned the Svenska Amerikanska Posten, the largest Swedish-language newspaper in the United States, built a 33-room mansion on Park Avenue between 1904 and 1908. The family lived there only a short while, and in 1929 Turnblad donated the house and the newspaper to the newly founded American Institute of Swedish Arts, Literature and Science — today's American Swedish Institute. On the west side of the neighborhood, the Honeywell campus grew up in buildings dating from 1912 to 1953, and it served as Honeywell's international corporate headquarters until 1999.

The mid-20th century brought the familiar pattern of decline. White flight, freeway construction (I-35W was cut along the neighborhood's western edge in the 1960s), and disinvestment transformed Phillips West from a working-class neighborhood to a poor one. The housing stock deteriorated. Crime increased. Over the same decades, the neighborhood's African American and American Indian communities grew, and later Southeast Asian refugees and Somali, Latino, and other immigrant communities settled in the affordable housing stock. By the 1980s, Phillips was one of the poorest, most crime-affected areas in Minneapolis.

After Honeywell left, Wells Fargo used the campus for its home mortgage business until it emptied out after the pandemic. In 2026 a developer announced plans to rebuild it as housing, health care, a school and retail.

Living in Phillips West means living in a neighborhood that much of the city only sees from I-35W. The freeway closes off the west side, Lake Street and Chicago Avenue run along the south and east, and inside those edges sit campuses — the Turnblad Mansion's grounds, St. Mary's, the empty Wells Fargo buildings — with residential blocks fitted between them. Visitors come for the American Swedish Institute or for appointments at Abbott and leave without seeing much else. Phillips West residents know the blocks.

The residential experience varies by block. The streets immediately around the institutional campuses are generally well-maintained, benefiting from the proximity to large institutions that have an interest in their surroundings. Other blocks — particularly toward the edges of the neighborhood, near the freeway and the commercial corridors — are rougher. The housing stock is mixed, and quality ranges from carefully maintained owner-occupied homes to rental properties showing decades of deferred maintenance. You will see both on the same block.

The community is diverse in every dimension — racially, ethnically, economically, linguistically. By Census estimates, about four in ten residents were born outside the United States, and about half speak a language other than English at home. Black residents, including East African families, are the largest group; about one in five residents is Latino. The diversity is not curated or advertised. It is the natural product of a neighborhood where the rents are low, the institutions are strong, and people from everywhere have found a foothold.

Abbott Northwestern Hospital, on Chicago Avenue at the neighborhood's southeast edge, is the major institutional presence on the east side. It employs thousands and generates a constant flow of workers, patients, and visitors along that edge. Like Hennepin Healthcare in Elliot Park, the hospital is both an asset and a force that shapes the neighborhood around its needs — parking, traffic, institutional expansion — rather than around residential ones.

Phillips West's food scene is modest within its own boundaries but richly supplemented by the neighboring corridors. Eat Street (Nicollet Avenue in Whittier) is across I-35W to the west. Midtown Global Market is at Chicago and Lake, just across Chicago Avenue in Midtown Phillips. Franklin Avenue's restaurants in Ventura Village are a couple of blocks north of 22nd Street. Inside the neighborhood, the place most visitors find is the café at the American Swedish Institute.

Phillips West's cultural anchor is the American Swedish Institute, on Park Avenue near the middle of the neighborhood, with Mia and the Children's Theatre Company just across I-35W in Whittier. The park resources are more modest, reflecting the neighborhood's economic profile and historical underinvestment in Phillips-area infrastructure.

Phillips West is served by Minneapolis Public Schools. Andersen United Middle School is a few blocks east, across Chicago Avenue in Midtown Phillips, and Whittier Elementary is across I-35W in Whittier. Attendance areas change, so check the district's school finder for a specific address. The Minneapolis Public Schools system also allows citywide enrollment, giving families access to magnet programs and specialty options beyond the immediate neighborhood.

Two private schools sit inside the neighborhood. Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, at 2924 4th Avenue South near Lake Street, is a Catholic college-prep high school built around a corporate work-study program. St. Mary's University of Minnesota has its Twin Cities campus at 2500 Park Avenue, a block north of the American Swedish Institute.

The educational challenges facing Phillips West families are significant — poverty, language barriers, housing instability, and the broader systemic issues affecting Minneapolis Public Schools all play roles. But a child growing up in Phillips West has the Turnblad Mansion a few blocks away and one of the great art museums in the country, with free general admission, within walking distance across the freeway. That counts for something.

Phillips West's housing market is affordable by Minneapolis standards, and it is overwhelmingly a rental market: by Census estimates, about 84 percent of homes are renter-occupied. Most of the housing is in apartment buildings and affordable housing developments, and by the same estimates about two-thirds of the units were built after 1970; older houses and duplexes make up a smaller share. The condition varies widely — some homes have been well-maintained or renovated by owner-occupants, while others show the effects of decades of deferred maintenance.

Very little comes up for sale. Minneapolis Area REALTORS counted 10 closed sales in Phillips West in 2025, nine of them townhouses or condos, at a median price of $110,000 — down from $225,000 in 2024, a swing that says more about how few sales there are than about the market. For buyers who do find something, it offers what is increasingly rare in Minneapolis: ownership close to downtown at prices accessible to working- and middle-class buyers. Down-payment assistance programs and first-time buyer incentives can make ownership even more accessible.

Phillips West has decent transit connections and solid walkability for a neighborhood outside the downtown core, though everyday errands usually mean walking to the edges — Lake Street, Chicago Avenue, or Franklin Avenue a couple of blocks north of 22nd Street. Bus service runs along those edges: the METRO D Line and Route 5 on Chicago Avenue, and the METRO B Line on Lake Street, with stations at Lake & I-35W and Lake & Chicago, the neighborhood's two southern corners. Route 11 stops at 4th Avenue and Lake Street.

The METRO Orange Line's I-35W & Lake St Station is at the neighborhood's southwest corner, with service north to downtown and south along I-35W to Burnsville. The Blue Line light rail is farther off — its Lake Street/Midtown station is more than a mile east along Lake Street.

The Midtown Greenway, through the southern end of the neighborhood, provides excellent cycling infrastructure — the separated trail connects to the Chain of Lakes, the Mississippi River trails, and the broader regional network. The flat terrain makes cycling practical throughout Phillips West. Bike-share stations are accessible in the area.

By car, I-35W is immediately accessible on the neighborhood's western edge, providing quick connections to downtown, the southern suburbs, and the interstate system. Plenty of residents go without: by Census estimates, about a third of households have no car, and nearly a quarter of workers commute by transit.

Phillips West's tensions are rooted in the same dynamics that shape all of the Phillips neighborhoods — poverty, racial inequality, institutional power, and the slow creep of development pressure on affordable communities. The planned redevelopment of the old Honeywell campus adds a new dimension to these tensions, but it does not resolve them.