Minneapolis City Council votes to allow two nonprofits to run Cowles Center

The Minneapolis City Council voted Thursday to authorize an agreement with Arts’ Nest, a nonprofit arts organization that’s partnering with Zenon Dance Company and School to operate the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts.

The decision officially sets in motion the return of the performance venue and center for educational dance and arts programming, which has been closed for over a year, with an expected grand opening in February 2026.

City staff announced earlier this month they would recommend the proposal submitted by Arts’ Nest, a nonprofit that runs the Phoenix Theatre on 26th Street and Hennepin Avenue. Arts’ Nest had submitted an application in partnership with Zenon Dance School, a longtime tenant of the Hennepin Center for the Arts, next door to the Cowles performance venue.

The Cowles Center has been closed since early 2024. Since then, the city has maintained the property in a secure but inactive state, and has been involved in a series of town halls with the dance community about the center’s future.

Since 2009, Minneapolis has held a 50-year ground lease with the owner of the land, Shubert Landholding, an affiliate of the arts-focused real estate nonprofit Artspace. As a requirement of $12 million in state bonding money for the Cowles’ development, the city has an ownership interest in the property, and is required to carry out performing arts and educational programing. After signing the ground lease, the city entered into a lease-use agreement with the Minnesota Shubert Center for Dance and Music Inc. — which later became the Cowles Center, a nonprofit closely related to the larger Artspace — to run the program for 20 years.

The deal was similar to other private/public development partnerships the city has entered into with nonprofits. The Guthrie Theater, MacPhail Center for Music, the Minnesota Orchestra, Norway House and the Family Partnership are some examples of projects funded with state bonding money that required the city to have ownership interest in the property.

“What was uncommon is we’ve not had an organization where the operator decided to step away,” said Miles Mercer, manager of business development at Minneapolis’ Community Planning and Economic Development Department. “That’s what makes it different.”

The city’s plan for the Cowles is part of a broader strategy to support dance across Minneapolis. Since the Cowles closure, the city’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Department has rolled out a Bridge Fund for Dance with grants up to $30,000 to support dance groups and artists doing projects in downtown. A mural celebrating 10,000 years of Native dance history is planned for the building’s exterior, and a statewide workforce development initiative for backstage production and technical workers is in development.

In addition, in April the city announced it would use $350,000 from the Downtown Assets Fund to pay for dance education programming previously run by the Cowles, in partnership with Young Dance. Council Member Katie Cashman from Ward 7 — which includes parts of downtown — said normally the fund goes toward things like sports stadiums.

“To value the arts as much as we value sports is huge,” she said.

Zenon Director Danielle Robinson-Prater said the company “will be focused on what’s happening on-site and virtually,” adding that partnerships with Young Dance could very well happen.

Cashman said the Cowles closure was one of the first things that came up when she was elected. “I’m a former dancer — I grew up dancing and all my sisters did as well, so I know that this is a really important sport as well as an art. And our community is really, really excited about this,” she said about the Cowles Center reopening.

“One of the strengths of their application was that they were very rooted in the local dance community, and wanted to ensure that that community was centered and supported in its process for utilizing that venue,” he said.

The Cowles’ future has national implications, according to Johnson.