Minneapolis developer Ray Harris dies at age 96

Ray Harris was known to his family as the survival artist and funnyman who outlived three bouts of cancer, a house fire, fall from a tree, a bike crash into a brick wall and those annual birthday spankings from his entire clan while crawling on hands and knees.

He even lived to tell the tale about the time he put a nonextinguishable candle on his mom’s 75th birthday cake. She blew and blew so hard, her false teeth popped out.

But to Minneapolitans, he will forever be remembered as the guy who brought this city the now historic, nostalgic gems such as Calhoun Square and Figlio restaurant.

He was the determined developer who helped save the Sears Tower on Lake Street from the wrecking ball. He and others ultimately sued Sears so it would honor its original sales agreement and allow the hulking Art Deco and former retail wonder to be converted into the building now better known for its Allina Healthcare offices and Midtown Global Market.

Harris won his case, and the building. But the project financing got messy, ended with a foreclosure and the city stepping in to bring the project home.

Harris, who recently died at age 96, had practice with development battles.

In the 1970s and ‘80s he was the driving force who developed the corner of Lake and Hennepin into the once bustling retail center formerly known as Calhoun Square. He went on to develop the site of Orchestra Hall with the Pillsbury family. He brought the Greenway Gables townhouses to Loring Park and established a well-used dog park also in Loring Park. It’s the neighborhood where he was born.

But for those who knew him, Harris was so, so much more.

He was described by his family as wearing many hats throughout his long life: Stanford University grad, cowboy, wrestler, beach bum, Army veteran and self-anointed world cribbage champion.

Fellow Minneapolitans have a different take. To them, Harris is the guy who walked a giant Holstein cow on a leash through Uptown to honor his tenant Kemps Ice Cream. He’s the guy who showed up at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport attired in a full and lifelike gorilla costume (along with five family members) to meet his soon-to-be daughter-in-law for the first time.

And he’s the guy who raised five kids, confessing one time to living in what he called a “zoo” with two dogs, a monkey, a cat, a bat, a gaggle of guinea pigs and one tarantula. He once sat on an electric chair “for fun.”

He was “very sharp. Very funny,” said Jill Osiecki, director of the Uptown Association. “I really loved that he still had this passion for the [Uptown] area. That never stopped even though he put it on the map so many years ago. He’s definitely a legend.”

“Ray built many memorable buildings, challenged the city to be better on the building which turned into [Midtown] Global Market, and he had a big vision for Block E that the city never recognized,” said former Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Goodman. “He was a real institution in the city. He even built a dog park with me.”

Harris never learned to rest on his laurels, even when constrained by a wheelchair.

In 2022, he “graduated” from hospice and told former Star Tribune reporter Curt Brown that, “Above the waist, I’m still going 200 miles per hour.”

Harris wrote two books: The first was his self-deprecating autobiography “Out of My Mind,” published only for family and friends. His second book, “Welcome to Wynott,” detailed his efforts enduring a world of constant but resistant change.

In his 90s, Harries started a comical but fact-filled blog called “Been There, Done That. Took Notes.”

He inherited perseverance from his father, Leo Harris, a Polish Jew who immigrated to Minnesota in 1870, and who would later become a Minneapolis Park Board member and the founder of a company that dredged the Mississippi River locks and Minneapolis lakes.

The second of three sons, Ray created a legacy as a family man, developer and civic enthusiast with a bent for charitable causes.