central corridor : Featured Stories

For urban designer Peter Musty, who's collaborating on plans for the Loring neighborhood in Minneapolis and the Ford site in St, Paul, walkable, transit-focused neighborhoods are non-negotiable. We need them for our health and prosperity--and to help our culture calm down.

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.

"We need to grow, meaning more people have to live here to support all the good things we all want," says David Frank, Minneapolis' first-ever Director of Transit Development, in a conversation with The Line's Jeremy Stratton. For Frank, who came here from Minneapolis' friendly rival Portland, that means giving people more choices, and that means making wise plans around the places where we've already committed resources, like our light-rail lines. The biggest challenge? Finding the money.

When James Garrett Jr., Nathan Johnson, and Erick Goodlow formed an architectural firm, they vowed to do more than create attractive buildings. The three Saint Paulites knew the city and its needs from the ground up, and they wanted to make an impact on the whole urban fabric. Via their company, 4RM+ULA, they're bringing a holistic design sense to some of the highest-profile projects in the Twin Cities--including the Central Corridor.

A survey by the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that cities do better economically when the people in them want to stay in them.It also found that Twin Citians are held here by many things, including our arts and cultural amenities, our parks and recreational advantages, and our improving transit picture. With a new year has come a new political climate, and fiscal challenges continue at all levels of government. What does this mean for our likelihood of holding on to the things that keep people loving the Cities? Holly Dolezalek asked some experts.

In the first of a series of talks with urbanists about the future of our Cities, writer, blogger, and real estate consultant Sam Newberg, whose nom de blog is Joe Urban, lets us in on the street-level reasons why reasonably dense, pedestrian-friendly, walkable cities with good public transit make bottom-line sense. And he makes some recommendations for our Central Corridor light-rail right-of-way too--like keep the on-street parking and slow down the cars.

In one magical zone in the Twin Cities, there's a loon made of junk, a chimney covered in shattered glass and ceramic shards, a place to buy tarantulas, and a hotel straight out of the Coen brothers. It's called the Central Corridor. The Line's ace managing photographer, Bill Kelley, and its managing editor, Jon Spayde, traveled University Avenue and Washington Avenue, where much of the light rail line will run when it's completed in 2014, seeking out their favorite offbeat, oddball, one-of-a-kind, things, things they hope and trust will be preserved through the construction of the line and the development of the Corridor neighborhoods. Herewith, their top ten.

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.