A. Guiding Vision
We envision St. Anthony Park as a livable, sustainable, connected and integrated community of businesses, industry, natural areas and residences, where members have a strong sense of connectedness to each other and to the neighborhood in which they work and/or live. Existing strengths that form the foundation for new growth include social connections, neighborhood design and character, and the physical quality of the built environment. The preservation of these qualities is paramount and are key criteria for evaluating incremental strategies as well as redevelopment opportunity areas. Due to geography and history, St. Anthony Park contains many fragmented and unrelated components. This plan seeks to overcome these limitations. To achieve this, a series of goals, objectives and strategies are around a three part theme:
• Revitalize South St. Anthony
• Maintain and Enhance North St. Anthony
• Physically connect these two areas and improve connectivity to adjacent communities.
The revitalization of South St. Anthony Park includes the redevelopment of University Avenue as a transit oriented urban village centered on the historic commercial node at Raymond Avenue and University. Market forces are beginning this process through the conversion of older buildings to housing, commercial and office space, and the addition of large apartment developments. With the eventual addition of LRT on University, this trend is expected to accelerate with guidance provided by this plan. Beyond this core urban village area, additional medium density housing (10 - 35 units per acre)is projected including urban-style town homes and smaller apartment buildings. Community consensus opposes additional high rise buildings. Realigning streets, including Raymond Avenue south of University Avenue, makes the long desired “Grand Rounds” parkway connection to Pelham Boulevard and the Mississippi River. New bicycle and pedestrian corridors are added to make new connections in all directions and to support transit and a more sustainable environment. Underused industrial property and warehouses around the historic core are converted to parks, including restored wetlands as a catalyst for new housing and commercial growth. Biotech and other high value “knowledge” industries will find the location and new amenities attractive and thus begin to support higher paying jobs and a stronger tax base.
North St. Anthony will continue to be a highly sought after address in the Twin Cities with an attractive housing stock and neighborhood design supporting continued strong housing values. Residential properties will be well maintained and will include more sustainable landscapes. Commercial areas will include more housing, gathering spaces, sustainable landscaping and thrive as neighborhood destinations.
Key connections will be made to connect many of the fragmented components within the District and to adjacent areas. Raymond Avenue, including the bridge over the railroad tracks, will become an attractive landscaped parkway thus making a strong visual connection between north and south. A pedestrian and bicycle connection will be made between Langford Park in the north, to the existing bikeway, and to the south through another spatially defining landscaped trail. Parkways will make connections between new parks and along Territorial Road into Minneapolis, and along Raymond/Pelham south to the river. A new connection will be made between I-94 at Vandalia and the University of Minnesota on the east side of the neighborhood. Along with other supportive connections, the St. Paul Campus will have strong access to Interstate 94, thus encouraging new high value knowledge industries (bio-tech) along this corridor. These changes will remove significant amounts of truck traffic on University, thus promoting development of a pedestrian and transit-oriented neighborhood centered at Raymond and University.
B. Planning & Design Principles
The following planning and design principles and core values emerged from community forums and committee discussions. These values serve three functions: first, they provide the guiding direction in the plan’s development; second, they serve as a reminder for how strategies are to be implemented; lastly, they may be used to evaluate the success of any strategy.
- Open Communication: Encourage all individuals and interest groups to communicate openly as stakeholders and stewards in charting St. Anthony Park/District 12’s evolution.
- Spontaneous Community Connections: Nurture spontaneous community connections through pedestrian oriented design and mixing of compatible uses.
- Community Character: Maintain and improve community character through high quality design of new development and redevelopment. High quality design incorporates scale, mass, amenities, public space, lighting, landscaping and materials that respects the historic, natural and cultural patterns of the community.
- Environmental Amenities: Protect and improve existing amenities, create new amenities and connect and restore such amenities where possible. These shall be considered key objectives in evaluating redevelopment opportunities.
- Diversity: Increase the demographic diversity of the community and provide for more living choices for residents of all ages, incomes and lifestyles.
- Mutually Beneficial Relationships: Collaborate and develop mutually beneficial relationships with organizations adjacent to St. Anthony Park/District 12 to address economic development and improvement of environmental resources.
- Transportation Choices: Use land redevelopment opportunities to integrate and balance a wide variety of transportation choices. Emphasize safe, convenient and visually attractive walking, biking, driving and transit choices in circulation systems and patterns.
- Long-term Sustainable Development: Evaluateland development opportunities balancing the economy, the community and the environment to achieve long-term sustainable development.
