Experts outline 'big and bold' plans to revitalize downtown St. Cloud

ST. CLOUD – The downtown of this central Minnesota city has bars and restaurants, a historic theater and a handful of buildings that seem to rotate retail tenants every few years.

But it doesn't have the thing most essential to a vibrant downtown: people.

That's the message national urban strategists told a roomful of downtown stakeholders — business owners, development groups, elected officials and more — at a Monday summit organized by St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis.

"I think oftentimes any community is its worst critic," said Kleis, who recently proclaimed the city's top economic development priority is breathing life into the downtown core. "You really don't see what you have. You don't see the assets. Sometimes you just focus constantly on the obstacles."

While a few downtown businesses shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic, the greatest change over the past few years has been the move of employees from working downtown to remotely. The key to bringing back foot traffic is housing, said Chris Leinberger, a downtown strategist and researcher known as one of the top 100 influential urbanists.

Leinberger described how the economy has shifted over the past century from an industrial to a knowledge economy, which is demanding both drivable suburbs and walkable urban areas. While there have been plenty of drivable suburbs established since the midcentury boom, most cities have moved away from walkable urban areas that were prominent before World War II.

"You're not providing enough of it for what the market wants," Leinberger said.

The downtown has several surface parking lots, which are underused spaces that could be transformed into mixed-use buildings with first-floor retail and apartments and parking above, according to Tobias Peter, assistant director of the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center, who also spoke at the summit.

Peter talked about Fargo's "remarkable" downtown transformation that has nearly eliminated surface lots in favor of mixed-use buildings. The transformation, which has been revitalized block by block over the past 15 years, was chronicled in an October travel story in the New York Times titled, "Geez, even Fargo has gone upscale."

Fargo's plan included strategies to bring additional housing and businesses, as well as pedestrian walkways. St. Cloud has a similar strategy outlined in its 2015 comprehensive plan, which proposes redevelopment of several lots to add housing, hotels, retail and art spaces along the river and the downtown core, as well as on the city's east side.

"That vision exists, but we have to move that vision forward," Kleis said.

Ken Holmen, who leads the city's largest employer as CentraCare's president and chief executive, told leaders in the room they need to be innovative in their thinking and help come up with new solutions.

"Sometimes in the strategic planning or the business planning we do, we tend to like the way it was yesterday. I'd like to suggest to you that's faulty thinking," Holmen said, "We understand that the market is fundamentally changing and we have to embrace [it]."

Both Leinberger and Peter said the effort must be led by the private sector, but noted the city can help by creating infrastructure that's more walkable, offering development incentives and requesting state bonding.

The Legislature has approved similar requests from other regional cities, including Rochester — which got $585 million in 2013 for its Destination Medical Center initiative — and Duluth, which got $100 million a few years ago to support urban renewal in the downtown and medical district.

Kleis didn't give a dollar amount for the bonding request but said it will be more than the amount Duluth received.

"It's not like you don't have extra money laying around," he said with a laugh, referring to the state's projected budget surplus of more than $17 billion.

The bonding money would help the city and private developers start on an extensive plan that could include a dozen or more redevelopment projects, rather than just the piecemeal development that's occurred over the past few decades.

"This is a way of attracting people and talent," Peter said. "You want to think big and bold with this."