Featured Stories

Smart Transportation Tools: How Metro Transit Uses Technology to Ensure a Smooth Ride

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Finding new ways to provide riders with information is ongoing at Metro Transit. Now that more people are carrying smart phones, and using them to pay for life’s essentials, Metro Transit has been innovating ways to meet riders’ needs.

Central Corridor, Creative Leadership, Design, Nightlife, Shopping, Transportation

Downtown

Rain as a Resource: St. Paul Innovates Shared, Sustainable Stormwater Management

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, December 06, 2016

The City of St. Paul and its partners are utilizing an innovative method of managing stormwater to restore natural water systems, incorporate green infrastructure into sustainable communities and improve the urban ecosystem.

Central Corridor, Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design, Emerging Technology, Regionalism, Sustainability, Transit Oriented Development, Transportation

Union Park, University, Macalester - Groveland, Midway, Saint Anthony Park, West Seventh, Highland Park, Downtown/Lowertown, Summit Hill and Crocus Hill, Thomas - Dale/Frogtown, Summit - University

Seven Ways Automobility Undermines a City's Bottom Line, from Least to Most Direct

Bill Lindeke Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Having an auto-oriented city comes at a cost and leaves cities in precarious financial positions, with lots of commitments but with a reduced and devalued tax base.

Central Corridor, Creative Leadership, Design, Regionalism, Strong Local Economy, Sustainability, Transit Oriented Development, Transportation

A Good Thing for St. Paul: A Pilot ADU Project Along the Green Line Invites Creative Possibilities

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The St. Paul City Council has voted to allow ADUs from Emerald to Lexington avenues along University, a pilot project that will bring creative possibilities for density, affordable housing and multi-generational living to the Central Corridor.

Affordable Housing, Central Corridor, Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design, Strong Local Economy, Sustainability, Transit Oriented Development, Transportation

Union Park, University, Midway, Saint Anthony Park

November Arts and Culture: Holiday Markets (and Makers) Galore

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, November 08, 2016

For MSP makers, this month is among the busiest of the year as they sell their wares at holiday markets, boutiques and pop-ups happening at a crazy pace. But you can also tour a renovated machine shed and enjoy open art studios before the big freeze.

Arts and Culture, Central Corridor, Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Economy, Design, diversity, Entrepreneurship, Shopping, Strong Local Economy

Riverfront/Mill District, Midway, Downtown, Saint Anthony Park, Lake Street, Southwest, Uptown/Lyn Lake, Northeast

Capital City Bikeway: St. Paul Inaugurates First Portion of Dedicated Bike Loop

Melissa Wenzel Tuesday, October 25, 2016

The first portion of the Capital City Bikeway opened this month, symbolizing St. Paul’s commitment to a new, dedicated biking infrastructure downtown.

Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Leadership, Design, Sustainability, Transportation

Downtown/Lowertown

Envisioning an Art Ecology in MSP

Diane Hellekson Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Writer and landscape architect Diane Hellekson outlines a dynamic model for thinking about cultivation of the arts in Minnesota; specifically, she makes the case for seeing the health of MSP's arts and artists in ecological rather than economic terms.

Arts and Culture, Design, Regionalism, Sustainability

Designers: The New and Expanded Edition

Thomas Fisher Tuesday, August 23, 2016

In the coming years, communities, businesses and nonprofits will increasingly look to architects for design solutions that extend well beyond buildings.

Arts and Culture, Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design

So Artists Can Celebrate Themselves: Artspace's Remarkable Work with Cultural Communities

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, August 09, 2016

Artspace enjoys a long history of working with culturally distinct groups in the development of affordable artist live/work housing and community spaces. From El Barrio in NY to Honolulu, HI, these projects allow artists to celebrate themselves.

Affordable Housing, Arts and Culture, Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Economy, Design, diversity, Entrepreneurship, Philanthropy, Regionalism, Reuse / Rebuild, Strong Local Economy, Sustainability, Talent Dividend

Flower Plots and Food Forests: Community Gardens as Living Examples of Neighborhood Commitment

Loren Green Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The Bancroft Meridian Garden, founded in 1996 on a lot along 38th Street in South Minneapolis, began as a flower garden. But communities change. So do their gardens. Now it's a food forest for the neighborhood.

Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Leadership, Design, Entrepreneurship, Green Jobs, Sustainability

Saint Anthony Park, Southwest

A Dingy Foursquare in St. Paul Finds New Life as a Modern Urban Farmhouse

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Designer David Strand looked beyond the brown asphalt shingles on a drab St. Paul foursquare and found an urban farmhouse ready for a light and airy modernization.

Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design, Entrepreneurship, Reuse / Rebuild

Summit - University

Q+A: Olga Viso discusses the Walker Art Center's plans for a more artfully integrated campus

Interview by Joel Hoekstra Tuesday, July 12, 2016

A new campus renovation announced this past spring will better connect the Walker Art Center with the adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, reinvigorating a longstanding city and art center partnership.

Arts and Culture, Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design

Downtown

Spring Green: The Rose Sets A New National Sustainability Standard for Affordable Housing

Joel Hoekstra Tuesday, May 17, 2016

A recently completed affordable-housing complex in the South Quarter of Minneapolis is arguably the most healthy and sustainable in the U.S.

Affordable Housing, Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design, diversity, Emerging Technologies, Energy, Sustainability

Lake Street

May Arts and Culture: MSP Makers

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Makers—the artists, entrepreneurs, innovators (aren’t they all the same?) who brighten lives with their joy of creativity and aesthetic panache—highlight May’s selections. Art-A-Whirl, of course. But the MSP Maker Faire is big news, too.

Arts and Culture, Coordination/Collaboration, Creative Economy, Creative Leadership, Design, diversity, Emerging Technologies, Emerging Technology, Entrepreneurship, Shopping

Como Park, Uptown/Lyn Lake, Nokomis, Northeast

Cohorts, Capacity Building, Creative Communities: The Evolution of Artspace's Geographic Approach

Camille LeFevre Tuesday, March 22, 2016

The arts real-estate nonprofit Artspace is re-scaling its work to take a more geographic approach that includes consulting with a cohort of art organizations in Detroit and developing creative districts in rural Colorado.