Minneapolis College of Art and Design has begun a $2.6 million landscaping project designed to raise the school's profile and improve access to the campus it shares with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in south Minneapolis. Scheduled for completion in fall 2010, the project will reorient the college from Stevens Avenue S. to E. 26th Street, a wider and more prominent thoroughfare in a historic section of the city.

The project includes a new entrance, parking lot and sculpture garden on 26th Street between 3rd Avenue and Stevens Avenue S. They are part of an image makeover for the 123-year-old college that will include new lighting, signage and the planting of more than 2,000 perennials, shrubs and trees. The garden design was inspired by the footprint of 19th-century houses that once occupied small lots on 2nd Avenue S., a now-vacated street that ran through campus.

"It's not another building; it's a green space animated with sculpture, which will be very exciting for the community and as outdoor classrooms for the college," said Jay Coogan, MCAD's president since June.

Landscaping and parking will be finished next spring and sculpture added over the summer.

Plans were developed by the Minneapolis landscape firm Oslund and Associates, which also designed the award-winning Gold Medal Park adjacent to the Guthrie Theater overlooking the Mississippi River. With advice from the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Committee, the firm planned the garden as an abstract version of the buildings that occupied the site in the early 1900s. The outlines of the original houses and lots will define the garden plots and the raised pads on which sculptures will sit.

"Old lot lines will be demarked by pavers, and some of the plots are raised 1 foot or more so there will be some rhythm and structure to the space," said David M. Motzenbecker, the Oslund landscape architect heading the project.

All of the sculpture will be temporary and designed by students, faculty, visiting artists or community members. Some pieces may be installed for just a few days while others may be on site for a year or more. There will be space for about 10 pieces of sculpture depending on size and complexity.

The gardens and sculpture will flank E. 26th Street and mask the parking areas, which will be in the middle of the block closer to college buildings. Plans also call for a monumental sign of some sort on 26th Street to mark the entry to a campus that long had been overshadowed by the museum next door. The school's main entrance is now a nondescript cul de sac off Stevens Avenue.

Signage on campus is so poor that "if you didn't already know it was MCAD you wouldn't know," said Motzenbecker, whose firm will install new signs next spring.

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431