HOUSING HIGHLIGHTS
Residential projects of note on the LRT Green Line
THE YELLOW-AND-BLUE TRAINS rattle past many interesting affordable housing projects. Many involved anywhere from five to 40 community partners. Here’s a sample:
Frogtown Square
What: Fifty-plus affordable housing units for neighbourhood seniors atop restaurants and retail shops owned and operated by local entrepreneurs.
Where: Next to Dale Street LRT station in Saint Paul.
History: This intersection was once notorious for strip clubs and porn theatres and later for vacant buildings. It is also the meeting point for two of the city’s most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, Frogtown and Rondo. The latter was infamously carved in two by the region’s last major transportation project, the I-94, which displaced hundreds of African-American families.
Unique partnership: The Neighbourhood Development Center partnered on the redevelopment, but also created a street-level business incubator to help people who live in the neighbourhood to work there, too.
Western U Plaza
What: Historic former Old Home dairy, redeveloped into commercial, market and affordable rental apartments with several reserved exclusively for formerly homeless tenants.
Where: Next to Western Avenue LRT station in Saint Paul.
History: Built in 1912 as a dairy, the imposing art deco heritage building had been derelict for years when Green Line planning ramped up. A community development group teamed up with a land bank to scoop up the property ahead of rumoured plans for a drive-thru pharmacy.
Unique partnership: The Twin Cities Land Bank put up $1.2 million to hold the property until community partners could raise enough funds to take over. The land bank has a mission to strategically buy land or loan money to support low-income and marginalized communities.
BROWNstone project
What: The Business Revitalization and Ownership for a Working Neighborhood project created 35 affordable rental units aimed at low-income workers.
Where: Next to Victoria Street LRT station in Saint Paul.
History: The four-storey workforce housing project is in a neighbourhood that started out as home to many African-American railroad workers.
Unique partnership: Project lead Model Cities is descended from a 1960s neighbourhood organizing effort around community health. Now a community developer, it included a reading room on railroad worker history and a public “pocket park” on the property.