Funders Collaborative Announces Plans for University Avenue

Over a century ago, University Avenue was a focus of popular aspirations for a dramatic, signature street – a promenade inspired by the Champs Elysees in Paris. Today’s University Avenue doesn’t entirely reflect the early visions, but it’s a cultural and economic power in its own right. As a percentage of the region’s tax base, University has been on the rise for several years, and its residential and business communities are robust – but not necessarily unified.

The Central Corridor Funders Collaborative is a group of local and national foundations focused on maximizing the opportunity for local residents created by a new light rail transit connection of downtown St. Paul, the University of Minnesota, and downtown Minneapolis. Yesterday, the collaborative held a public announcement of a broad investment strategy they have crafted over the last twelve months. In large part, the strategy is intended to lend more continuity to funders’ efforts to distribute the benefits of light rail as broadly as possible.

The strategy revolves around four elements of effective places: A diverse, stable local economy; ample supply of affordable housing; choices for transportation; and a process for managing and resolving conflicts. It’s an approach backed by the resources of eleven foundations and a skilled director in Jonathan Sage-Martinson. 

That’s fortunate, because a number of ongoing challenges will require plenty of horsepower and creativity. How do we retain affordability while maximizing development along University Avenue? How will we adjust to University Avenue after its physical and economic landscape has been altered by light rail? Considering the fact that many neighborhoods (on the north and south) have long considered University as their edge, who is responsible for promoting and tending to the area once it’s stitched together in a new way by light rail access? 

These questions don’t fall to any single entity. And in St. Paul, Mayor Coleman and City Council members Carter and Stark have been very active in working to address them. But these issues will get thornier before trains run in 2014 – and the success of the Funders Collaborative will be measured by its role in their resolution.