Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a community economic development conference in Minneapolis. It was called 20/20, reflecting the twentieth anniversaries of the Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers and the Local Initiative Support Corporation (or LISC). In fact, I got my very first predevelopment loan from LISC almost twenty years ago for ArtSpace Projects’ Frogtown Family Lofts in St. Paul.

Over 400 people involved in community economic development from around the region attended. As you can imagine, we live in exciting times, particularly those of us involved in community economic development.

LISC Executive Director Andriana Abariotes welcomed us. She recognized that we faced new challenges.

Then former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer led a panel discussion with leaders from the The McKnight Foundation, Travelers Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota, and the Northwest Area Foundation. While the panelists acknowledged the stock market decline adversely impacted their resources, all of the panelists, encouraged by Latimer, said that there were new opportunities for collaborative efforts between the public and private sectors.

During the break, I was able to connect with several of the people I had sought, including Ron Price, Senior Program Officer (and retail specialist) at LISC. He guided me to several excellent on-line resources which I am continuing to explore.

At lunch, I sat at a table full of bankers and equity investors. They all agreed that there was still money out there, that the underwriting requirements, at least for affordable housing, were still shaped largely by the state, and that the biggest change was a “flight to quality”, meaning higher returns and/or more reliable cash flow for financial participants.

Julie Causey, Chair of Western Bank, Michael Rubinger, President and CEO of LISC, Dan Bartholomay, Commissioner of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, and Elizabeth Kautz, Mayor of Burnsville, spoke during lunch. All were anticipating roles for the private sector in the economic development efforts initiated by the public sector in the coming months.

During the afternoon, I attended a session on “Community Development’s Return on Investment”. The speakers were Paul Fate, President and CEO of CommonBond Communities, Peter Heegaard, Founder and Director of Urban Adventure, and Mike Temali, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Development Center. All of the speakers seemed to indicate that neighborhoods were now being reviewed much like businesses, as a single entity that generates jobs, sales, and tax revenues.

The themes emphasized by the speakers during the conference included: 1. Collaboration, 2. Holism, 3. Community Engagement, and 4. Regional Integration. They are not unfamiliar to many of us in community economic development in Northfield.

Personally, I thought other concepts were strongly represented in the sessions. In my mind these were: 1. Grow Existing Assets, 2. Produce Local Results, 3. Clarify the Specifications of Success, and, in the current environment, 4. Cut Through the Noise, Fear, and Uncertainty when Making Decisions.

It was a great opportunity to renew old friendships, interact with peers and share successful models. I anticipate generating returns on this “investment” as part of the NDDC’s work plan for 2009.

According to today’s (February 26th) Strib, Oscar-winning actress and Minnesota-native daughter Jessica Lange doesn’t like what she sees happening to Stillwater.

“When we first moved to Stillwater, it still felt like a real place. It had a downtown with a hardware store, a clothing store…Now it’s all gift shops and these terrible condominiums.” “It was a little town with a great deal of character. Everything gets yuppified, I guess”.

It’s hard for real downtowns, symbolized by the presence of a hardware store and clothing store, to survive with the Wal-Marts and Lowe’s out on the highway. The gift shops are intended to serve the desired visitors and the condos are hoped to add population density to support the traditional retail. Towns try to add the promising without sacrificing the valued.

Jessica and her husband Sam Shepard lived in Stillwater for nine years. They raised three children in a house on North 4th Street.

“Another piece to the downtown redevelopment puzzle is on its way, as is more downtown parking.” No, it’s not Northfield, it’s Prior Lake and the article was in the South Extra section of the Strib. The paper was reporting on the highlights of Mayor Jack Haugen’s State of the City address last week.

“By the end of the year we expect to have at least one new multi-use downtown building project underway,” he said, “the building will follow the Lakefront Plaza and Rock Creek template as a quality multi-story and multi-use structure”.

I really appreciated the fact that the mayor of Prior Lake was highlighting a downtown in-fill or redevelopment project in his State of the City address. His appreciation for a traditional style of commercial development warmed my heart. We are fortunate in Northfield to have a solid base of multi-story and multi-use buildings. Encouraging such in-fill or redevelopment projects, with traditional design elements, would be a great use of our leaders’ social capital.

Even more heartening were his many statements about downtown parking. “We understand that we must create more parking, and soon. You can anticipate that in 2008 that additional parking will be created on city-owned property”, he said. I’d love to hear those words from our mayor or either of the downtown Councilors. Both the 3rd and Washington and 5th and Washington municipal parking lots could be turned into parking structures, as recommended by the, was it, 2000 Walker Parking Study. Taking advantage of the topography to create two-levels of parking, requiring no sacrifice of parking spaces for internal circulation, would be a great way to get more economic leverage from our existing assets.

According to the Strib, a complete text of the mayor’s speech and the slide show that accompanied it can be found at www.cityofpriorlake.com/mayors_columns.shtml. It’s worth a look.

As I noted in the previous post, I recently visited a small town in Iowa. In fact, it was Grinnell.

The town, at a little over 9,000 residents, is about half the size of Northfield. However, in spite of its relatively modest population, it has a visibly vital downtown. No doubt part of this vitality is due to Grinnell College, located at the north end of downtown.

As I mentioned in the post on their downtown library, the town has an interesting mix of retail offerings, many of which are familiar to us in Northfield. However, they’ve got something that we don’t have here…

…a downtown movie theater.

As I headed to my car after dinner, to drive to the motel out on the highway (there’s no Archer House in Grinnell), a large group of college students walked by, heading to…

…the downtown movie theater.

They could use non-motorized transportation, it was just a few blocks away.

A downtown movie theater…

…what a great idea!

Phillip Spensley, Chair of the Northfield Arts Commission, brought me back a copy of the weekly newspaper from Burlington, Vermont. I visited Burlington a couple of years ago when my oldest daughter was looking at colleges. I loved it. Seeing the ads for the David Grisman Quintet and Emmylou Harris concerts reminded me why I liked it so much. There’s quite a bit of cultural vitality in that town.

The article that Phil recommended to me was about the growth of the area’s creative economy. The steadily increasing number of studios, including many focusing on the carving of granite, appears to be fostering other economic development.

One of the small towns undergoing a renaissance is Barre, Vermont. Young entrepreneurs have opened new restaurants, a brewery, a coffee shop, and a bakery in town. Although some people are concerned about gentrification, Sue Higby, director of Barre’s Studio Place Arts, calls it “downtownification”.

“Downtowns are places where you can leave your car, stroll around and really enjoy a diverse selection of small businesses”, Higby offers. She goes on to identify what she calls Barre’s core businesses, “We have real jewelers who repair, a cobbler shop, two hardware stores…”

It sounds like an authentic downtown to me.