The Walker Art Center is located a block off Interstate-94 at the corner of Lyndale Avenue South and Vineland Place. Walker Art Center Director Kathy Halbreich says the concept for the expanded Walker campus is to enhance the artistic, educational, and social experience for a wide range of visitors from students and teens to artists.

The enhanced Walker Art Center will feature an additional 100,000 sf to 110,000 sf of interior space, four acres of green space, nearly 14,000 sf of rooftop terraces and visitor amenities including a new restaurant, café, shop and 700-vehicle underground parking facility. The art center will also have galleries and gardens for the museum's growing collection, a high-tech studio for contemporary dance, music, performance, and theater programs, a new-media laboratory and new spaces for innovative education programs.

The expansion, which will nearly double the size of the current facility, is oriented to the south, along Hennepin Avenue, to the site now occupied by the Allianz Life Insurance Co. building. A new two-level structure, connecting with the existing facility, will feature galleries and education spaces. The taller south end of the addition includes the multidisciplinary performance studio, shop, and a restaurant offering views of Loring Park and Downtown. The resulting new façade will open up the art center to Hennepin Avenue and connect it with Downtown.