The Minneapolis Planning Commission approved a proposal to rename a street after musical icon, Prince. In a unanimous vote, the request made by the Downtown Council is one step closer to coming to fruition.
Prince Rogers Nelson was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota and came from a family with deep musical roots. HIs father, John Nelson, operated under the stage name Prince Rogers as a jazz pianist. His mother, Mattie Nelson, was a vocalist.
A commemorative street sign will be added to First Avenue North in the city’s downtown neighborhood. The boulevard runs just along the front of First Avenue, the club that gained notoriety after appearing in the musician’s renowned Purple Rain film and album.
The new street, “Prince Rogers Nelson Way,” now awaits final approval from the city council before it will be officially changed. It is expected to pass.
This news comes just a few months short of reports at the top of the year the late musical icon’s estate ended a long battle with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after he died without a will. It was determined that his entire estate, including his catalog of songs was valued at $156.4 million, twice the amount of an earlier appraisal of $82.3 million.
The estate’s remaining heirs include three of his siblings, as well as the publishing company Primary Wave who bought out the rights to Prince’s catalog from three other heirs. Two have since died.
“It has been a long six years,” said L Londell McMillan, the lawyer representing the three heirs, at the time.
In 2016, the world nearly stopped when news spread that the “Red Corvette” crooner had passed. It was later determined that his cause of death was an accidental opioid overdose. He was only 57 years old at the time.