Charles Birnbaum posted a broadside about Peavey Plaza plans at the Huffington Post website Monday night, calling for the City of Minneapolis to reopen the entire decision-making process.

Last week, the city and the Minnesota Orchestra unveiled a plan by Twin Cities firm Oslund & Associates for a plaza that maintains the old design's sunken aspect and a few other features, but does away with the fountain at 12th and Nicollet and makes other significant changes to the original.

Some of the changes were required to make the plaza handicapped-accessible, officials said.

His plan "respects the old, but clarifies it," Oslund said at a press briefing on Oct. 19. The new design "has a similar spatial understanding" as the old, Oslund said. His plan, which has the support of Mayor R.T. Rybak, City Council Member Lisa Goodman and officials of the orchestra, is up for votes by a City Council committee this week and by the full City Council on Nov. 4.

Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, bemoaned the "bulldozing" of the 1974 plaza designed by M. Paul Friedberg. Birnbaum says the new plan would replace a "modern masterwork" with a "watered down version of Chicago's Millennium Park."

Birnbaum says that he and Friedberg, who were originally part of Oslund's team to develop plans for Peavey Plaza, have been shut out of the deliberations since last spring. He charges that "the process was really steered behind the scenes by the Orchestra in tandem with the City."

Birnbaum pleads for Target Corporation to jump into the fray and redirect the future of the plaza that sits across Nicollet Mall from its corporate headquarters. The implication is that if Target were to pony up needed funds for the project, it might also influence the design.

Says Birnbaum: "To the City of Minneapolis and the Minnesota Orchestra, it's time to face the music. You blew it on the process and you're preparing to needlessly ruin an important and much beloved landscape."

Birnbaum was scheduled to talk about Peavey Plaza on WCCO radio at 1 p.m. on Tuesday (Oct. 25).