Itasca Project leadership ends the business-led regional development group

The Itasca Project, which for more than two decades brought together Twin Cities business, political and civic leaders to tackle regional issues, is calling it quits.

Founded in 2004, the organization delved into a range of economic and quality-of-life challenges, from transportation funding to housing affordability to early childhood education.

In 2011, the group launched regional economic development organization Greater MSP, which absorbed its founder about a decade later.

In a letter to members and funders Friday, Itasca leadership said the project was never intended to be permanent.

“We thought we would do work as long as there was work to do,” Itasca Project co-founder and leadership council member Tim Welsh said in an interview, “but the moment that we got to the point where other organizations could take on this work and continue this wonderful spirit of Itasca, we would pass it off to them.”

The Itasca Project’s Executive Leadership Council — which Minnesota Star Tribune publisher and CEO Steve Grove chairs — decided unanimously, along with the organization’s managing director, “that the time is right to retire the Itasca Project as a standalone initiative,” the letter read.

Grove stepped into the chair role a year ago. In remarks at a Greater MSP event earlier this year, he described the Itasca Project as a “unique staple of institutional growth and ways for business leaders to engage in our community.”

In an interview Monday, Grove said he was not brought on to end the Itasca Project but that after a “year of exploration” it became clear that was the logical next step.

“When I came on board, I think there were some big questions yet to be solved on how it would be positioned within Greater MSP, and I think there was a desire to see if it could sustain for a next chapter,” he said. “The conclusion of that effort was to say, ‘Actually, you know what? It’s time to pass the torch.’ ”

When the Itasca Project launched, there was a sense the Twin Cities’ economic development strategy had historically been about “stealing companies from the other side of the river, and that needed to change,” said Itasca Project co-founder Jay Cowles.

The Itasca Project connected business leaders with their peers in other sectors, said Cowles, whose family owned the Star Tribune from 1935-98. He added the project imbued participants with the belief that “the issues of the Twin Cities were larger than any one sector could grapple with alone” and required “alignment among multiple parties in order to drive effective action.”

In the decades since, the number of organizations doing that kind of regional work has multiplied. In interviews, current and former Itasca Project leaders pointed to Greater MSP and the GroundBreak Coalition, an organization working to close racial wealth gaps, as key to taking on the kinds of efforts the Itasca Project tackled.

In the immediate term, Greater MSP is taking on the Itasca Project’s Minnesota and national Young American Leaders Programs, a partnership with the University of Minnesota and Harvard Business School.

Peter Frosch, Greater MSP CEO and a member of the Itasca Project’s leadership council, said the decision to end the organization resulted from “months, if not years” of conversations.