Mary deLaittre's work to improve St. Paul's river connection keeps rolling along

As executive director of the Great River Passage Conservancy, Mary deLaittre's job is to reconnect Minnesota's capital city with the river that spawned it about 180 years ago.

Upriver, that means taking advantage of the Mississippi's status as a historic waterway and national park. Downtown, she hopes to create a more vibrant riverfront that highlights the city's economic development potential. And downstream, the idea is to not only help the river recover its health but to improve the public's connection to its history and culture.

Eye On St. Paul recently visited with deLaittre (pronounced Dee-late) to catch up on the conservancy's work. This interview has been edited for length.

Q: You've been on the job for how long now?

A: I've been working along the river within St. Paul for six years. I was originally hired by the [Mayor Chris] Coleman administration in 2016 to take what is called the Great River Passage Master Plan [and implement it]. Then, in 2018, we created the Great River Passage Conservancy as part of the strategy, to be the private fundraising arm for the capital projects.

Q: Is this a public/private partnership?

A: Absolutely. Each one of our projects will have a different funding formula. But we at the conservancy raise both private and public dollars. For instance, for the River Balcony project, the city contributed $100,000 towards the schematic design and staff time to manage it. With the River Learning Center, that was mostly private dollars for the schematic design. But again, the city came in with staff to manage the design team.

Q: Are there more projects?

A: We have a total of three projects. We've got the River Learning Center and National Park Service headquarters, which is at Crosby Farm Park. The second project is the River Balcony project, which is a one and a half mile promenade with connections to the river. And the third is called the East Side River District. It's about 1,000 acres in and around Pig's Eye Lake. That [explores] how do you take one of the most complicated, urban environments and make it accessible to the community in a variety of ways?

Our approach to it is fourfold: reveal, heal, protect, connect. How do we first and foremost reveal the unbelievably rich story of this area? Because it's got Dakota significance and sacred sites and one of the largest rail-switching yards in the region. It's culturally and historically and economically and environmentally very, very rich and important. So how do we reveal that story? How do we heal? We have two superfund sites. How do we clean them up?

And how do you connect people to and throughout this area, because right now the public really can't. The roads aren't particularly paved. The railroad crossings are uncontrolled. It floods. So how do we improve the infrastructure?

Q: What are we going to see first?

A: We launched a schematic design for the River Balcony first. The design team has just presented 75% of the schematic design and probably, in October, they'll be revealing 100% to the community.

In January-February, the River Learning Center will launch a schematic design. They will be presenting a 100% schematic design in the October timeframe as well. The East Side River District, we're still in fundraising mode. For instance, we received a multiyear grant from REI that's part of their urban re-wilding initiative. So that kicks us off. But we have about $400,000 in fundraising to go to start a schematic design.

Q: How confident are you the River Balcony is actually going to get built?

A: I am confident. Unlike the initial proposal [in 2015], which showed an awful lot of new construction, the design team that we've got [James Corner Field Operations] foundational principle is building on what's already there. Because there are amazing landmarks and institutions and infrastructure pieces and parks that already exist, we want to connect and enhance rather than scraping clean and building new.

Also, there are a number of projects happening along this mile and a half, like Rivers Edge, and we've got Viking River Cruises coming in shortly. So, the design team has been working very hard to make sure what they're proposing sort of weaves into all these potential projects but also those projects, when they get built by their owners, will be realizing portions of the River Balcony.

Q: Any cost estimates?

A: Not yet. Our design team is working on that right now. But September-October is when we'll be releasing all of that information. Along with phasing information.

Q: Why reconnect St. Paul to the river?

A: The river is critical, ecologically speaking. But also, it's very much part of American history. Equally, it's important to the ecology and history of St. Paul and the larger region. Our identity is inextricably linked to the Mississippi River.

We turned our back on rivers because they became industrial. Then, almost 40 years ago, St. Paul started to re-orient towards the river. I think we're at a really critical moment right now with leadership and funding and the will to take that next, really radical step in terms of transforming our relationship to the river.

People can choose where they want to live. And by re-orienting towards the river, by reclaiming our identity and also our history, we can really make this a place where people want to live.