Rondo land bridge can reconnect neighborhood torn apart by highway

I-94 leaves a lasting scar through Saint Paul’s Summit-University neighborhood. Standing at ground level noise, pollution, and a lack of place characterize what had once been a thriving neighborhood only 55 years ago. The legacy of highway construction across the country is well established now; it is the destruction of thriving neighborhoods, like Rondo, to make way for auto-oriented development. The loss of the entire neighborhood’s connective tissue is a constant reminder of racial bias in planning and a wrong that has always required rectification. One vital way for the City of Saint Paul and MNDOT to begin to redress this wrongdoing to the former Rondo community would be to provide focus and funding to build the proposed Rondo land bridge envisioned by ReConnect Rondo (RCR). Now is the time to put a lid on I-94 with new housing, commercial development, and parks to begin to make up the economic and social gap left in the Rondo community.

Since 2016, there has been wide-ranging engagement within the community along the I-94 corridor to inform goals for MNDOT’s “Rethinking I-94” project. The group that has taken a center-stage role in facilitating engagement and envisioning possibilities is ReConnect Rondo (RCR). To engage the community, RCR and HGA Architects created a groundbreaking app to allow residents to plop parks and development over I-94 in a virtual environment, giving everyone the tools to dream big about what could be possible. Through this engagement effort by RCR, along with agency pre-development planning, there is significant determination to build over I-94. Now is the time to capture this momentum with a substantive plan drawing directly upon the feedback already gathered by ReConnect Rondo and other community groups.

A report published in March 2018 by the Urban Land Institute highlights that the land bridge should be “significant,” MNDOT, “should construct and maintain the bridge,” and that the, “land bridge is an opportunity for African American leadership and ownership,”. The mission is clear; the Rondo land bridge should be built to the maximum extent so that the ownership and leadership from African American stakeholders is leveraged completely, something that never happened during the planning of I-94. ReConnect Rondo’s Keith Baker estimates that $270 million were lost in intergenerational wealth as a result of the destruction of 700 homes and 300 businesses in Rondo caused by land clearing for I-94. While the lost time and equity can never be made up to the community through reversing history, an investment from public agencies of at least the amount lost in intergenerational wealth is a start.

The Rondo land bridge has the potential to be one of the most significant public projects in Saint Paul history, but only if the project seeks the biggest possible equitable impact. To do so, utilizing existing tools improved through the last decade of development in the Midway area, like the equity scorecard, will be the primary method. Moving the project forward with equitable outcomes as the central mission, the Rondo land bridge will be a compelling proof of concept and example for cities across the country to follow when they think about reconnecting neighborhoods afflicted by highway construction.

While securing the funding for this project will be a significant undertaking, the opportunity is far greater. With strong leadership from ReConnect Rondo, the City of Saint Paul, and Mayor Melvin Carter, the Rondo land bridge can be accomplished as a new model for equitable development in communities afflicted by highway construction. Klyde Warren Park, completed over a trenched highway section near downtown Dallas in 2008, cost $20.5 million per acre, and provides a guide on cost. The Rondo land bridge, built to cover the maximum amount of space between Chatsworth and Grotto Streets, is estimated to cost between $285.5 and $454.9 million. This total will be funded through many partners such as the government, corporate philanthropic, private investors, and institutional investors, and will generate millions of dollars in additional economic development. The result will need to benefit the existing community as much as possible and tracking who benefits from the economic development money will be crucial to the project’s success.

Development in the Summit-University neighborhood has accelerated on the heels of two major projects completed in the last 6 years, the Green Line Light Rail and Allianz Stadium. These two major investments in the area have provided ample experience for Saint Paul to learn how to best harness a major investment to benefit the existing community. To plan and track outcomes, project planners should use the equity scorecard, and other methods honed during the last decade. Building the Rondo land bridge will reconnect a community destroyed by malevolent development and begin to rebuild stolen equity.