Downtown Saint Paul is seeing incredible growth, with more and more new residents and businesses moving in each day – and it’s not slowing down. Development projects from apartment complexes to hotels to retrofitted commercial buildings to massive projects like Riverfront Properties are also underway. When a community changes this fast, its policies don’t always keep up. As we focus on both the present and the future, it is critical that our vision and expectations as well as our policies reflect a downtown that is bustling with the sights, sounds and intensity of a great American city.
According to the International Downtown Association, which analyzed the features of vital and livable urban centers through its Downtown Vitality Index, a downtown should support around 10 percent of the entire city population, or about 30,000 residents in Saint Paul (up from 8,000 today). This index also suggests Saint Paul needs to add another 20,000 to 30,000 jobs over the next 10 to 20 years. Continued residential growth could become a powerful catalyst to help drive more employers and jobs into downtown, with increased retail purchasing power and activity on nights and weekends. But we will stifle that business growth if we don’t evaluate our city ordinances and make changes that reflect what downtown Saint Paul is – and wants to be – as opposed to what downtown Saint Paul was 10 years ago.
The Saint Paul Downtown Alliance, City of Saint Paul elected leaders and staff, and the CapitolRiver Council have been working together to identify changes to our current policies that support our vision for downtown Saint Paul. These changes include:
1. Exempting downtown from licensing rules that make it challenging for bars and restaurants to open within 300 feet of a church or school;
2. Re-evaluating our signage and advertising restrictions to create a livelier streetscape and nurture businesses that provide retail amenities and jobs;
3. Changing licensing rules that limit bars and restaurants from holding special events; and
4. Amending state and local laws to allow retailers to use signs or display merchandising on sidewalks.
These changes are intended to allow for flexibility in our downtown when and where it makes sense.
Policies that don’t consider the unique nature of a downtown can negatively affect growth and vitality. A downtown is not just a residential community, or a commercial node, or an entertainment district – it is the confluence of all these things. A regular evaluation of our ordinances, zoning regulations and policies is important to make sure that residential and commercial growth does not displace one or the other, but rather complements each other. Doing so sends a message to the marketplace that we are open for business and will help us to build one strong, vibrant downtown Saint Paul.
Joe Spencer is president of the Saint Paul Downtown Alliance, and writes this piece also on behalf of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, St. Paul Council Member Rebecca Noecker, Capitol River Council Chair Tiffany Brace, and Securian Financial Chairman and CEO Chris Hilger. Hilger and Carter co-chair the Downtown Alliance, and Noecker is on its board.
