Saint Anthony Park : Featured Stories

With winter nipping at our heels, we thought it would be appropriate to take a lingering second look at the beautiful Twin Cities community gardens that Managing Photographer Bill Kelley shot back in August--eight little paradises in Saint Paul and Minneapolis where community spirit is cultivated along with the flowers and vegetables.

Nobody expected Central Corridor light-rail construction to be easy on the small businesses along the route. But now that the challenges of access and parking are hitting, business owners, the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and other local organizations are working to keep the Corridor as customer-friendly as possible.

Where Raymond Avenue meets University, artists and innovators have been living and working for decades, lured by cheap rents and a friendly, funky vibe. What will happen to them as light rail comes through, bringing construction disruption now--and an unpredictable development pattern later? The newly formed South Saint Anthony Park Creative Enterprise Zone aims to keep the neighborhood weird--and welcoming.

Think of them as small, elegant design objects you live in. They take a whole lot less time to put up than your average house--even your average little house--because they are almost entirely prefabricated. They're weeHouses by St. Paul's Alchemy Architects, and they're a hot commodity in the national, and even international, design world.

Our intrepid, and maybe just a little lonesome, freelancer Elizabeth Millard decided to road-test Saint Paul's two coworking spaces--offices where people like her, who would normally toil at home or in coffee shops, gather for mutual support, idea swapping, and random chitchat in between bouts of work. This is office life without managers, a dress code, or water-cooler grousing. And there are pancakes.

It's four years before a single train is slated to set out on the tracks, but the Central Corridor light rail line between Minneapolis and Saint Paul has already created a powerful network of connections across the Twin Cities. In particular, ad-hoc collaboratives, instead of a single light-rail "czar" or bureaucracy, and Saint Paul's traditionally strong neighborhood political structure, have pushed planning for how the line will impact the city now and in years to come.