How are the downtowns of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rochester adapting to the post-pandemic landscape? Join us as we engage in an insightful conversation with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, and Rochester Mayor Kim Norton, who share their visions for revitalizing their cities and addressing challenges in public safety, business development, and reimagining older buildings for a brighter future. This is a must-listen episode for those who care about the progress and development of Minnesota's cities, as these influential mayors discuss the importance of creating an economic and emotional connection to their downtown areas. The mayors also share their excitement for the prospect of Minnesota hosting Expo 2027.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
Rochester Mayor Kim Norton
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter
Experience Rochester, MN
How are the downtowns of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rochester adapting to the post-pandemic landscape? Join us as we engage in an insightful conversation with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, and Rochester Mayor Kim Norton, who share their visions for revitalizing their cities and addressing challenges in public safety, business development, and reimagining older buildings for a brighter future. This is a must-listen episode for those who care about the progress and development of Minnesota's cities, as these influential mayors discuss the importance of creating an economic and emotional connection to their downtown areas. The mayors also share their excitement for the prospect of Minnesota hosting Expo 2027.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
Rochester Mayor Kim Norton
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter
Experience Rochester, MN
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerodechestermn. com.
Mayor Jacob Frey:We are flinging open our doors right now to the whole world. We had the murder of George Floyd in our city and it's something that we don't just acknowledge, but we're doing something about it. We in Minnesota want to be an example for the rest of the country to follow And right now I can tell you. You know, for the first time in a couple of years, when people ask how I'm doing, I say you know, I'm doing well and I'm not lying to myself when I say that. Things are getting dramatically better. You know, you cannot just see the sunlight at the end of the tunnel, but I feel like we're approaching it.
Mayor Kim Norton:Rochester is home to the largest business in the state, which is Mayo Clinic, and so healthcare is provided right in the middle of our downtown all the time, and that didn't change during the pandemic, and it continues today, so we have patients that are downtown every single day. However, we still, too, have empty buildings and are trying to figure out as businesses. Retail has changed, how people purchase has changed, where they're purchasing has changed. What can we do with those buildings?
Mayor Melvin Carter:If we, any of our downtowns want to stay vibrant, if we want to stay relevant and competitive, we have to get rid of that It's, not, for me, kind of mentality. We have to be intentional about connecting our downtown, both physically. So that means you know transit routes and bike lanes and sidewalks and ways for folks to get downtown but also, even more importantly, economically and emotionally, making sure that people see themselves downtown, see their community downtown, see themselves reflected, welcome and invited to be and to spend their time downtown.
Bill Von Bank:Welcome to the growing destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, Bill Von Bank. Minnesota's three largest cities, while uniquely different, have a lot in common. I had a rare opportunity to sit down with Mayor Jacob Frey from Minneapolis, Mayor Melvin Carter from St Paul and Mayor Kim Norton from Rochester. All three mayors are addressing permanent post COVID impacts to their downtowns, cultivating new business development opportunities and exploring unique ways to reimagine older buildings, which they acknowledge will require some help from the Minnesota legislature. They're also taking proactive approaches to address public safety. Mayors Frey, Carter and Norton agree that at a national level, Minnesota punches above its weight but needs to do a better job of telling its story and sharing its successes. Mayor Jacob Frey, Mayor Melvin Carter and Mayor Kim Norton welcome to the growing destinations podcast. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to be here.
Bill Von Bank:You're the mayors of Minnesota's three largest cities Mayor Frey, Minneapolis, Mayor Carter, St. Paul and Mayor Norton, Rochester. All three of you are serving in your second term as mayor. A significant portion of that time was under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. Let's spend some time talking about recovery and specifically focusing on your downtowns. As your cities continue to emerge in a post pandemic environment, what are some of your challenges, Mayor Norton in Rochester?
Mayor Kim Norton:Well, we're busy with a downtown task force to try to identify what those problems are, and I think we are definitely being impacted by the changes that occurred, such as people working from home more than they did before and trying to help our businesses innovate so that they can remain viable in our downtown area.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Frey
Mayor Jacob Frey:As of recent. One of my favorite experiences is having people complain about either potholes or parking.
Mayor Jacob Frey:I mean these are the topics that we used to talk about before the pandemic, and I cannot tell you how good it feels to occasionally have those issues, which look they're the bread and butter of being a mayor and working in a city government, but have been perhaps in the background over these last few years because they're far more pressing, much more global issues that have been at the forefront.
Mayor Jacob Frey:And so, in addition to continuing to keep our the pedal to the metal on these more global issues, having those previous challenges coming back into the limelight, I think is kind of a good thing. But the challenges that we had before the pandemic, the fault lines were exposed. It's not as if these challenges didn't previously exist. They were always there. But our city has experienced a kind of rawness that we haven't seen in the past And that requires us to go even further, to continue doing that record setting work around affordable housing, to continue to build out an office of community safety, which is what Minneapolis is focused on, and to continue to kind of reinvent who we are, and you know, just yesterday we announced some of the plans around downtown and how your own task force around what those, that vision can ultimately be for our city.
Mayor Jacob Frey:And so you know it's good to be here with other mayors because they're on the front lines. They're dealing with these same, if not similar, issues in their respective cities And you know mayors are in the reality business. they got to get the job done.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Carter, what are some challenges that you're addressing?
Mayor Melvin Carter:I think potentially one of the longest lasting symptoms of the pandemic is the impacts there's, the permanent impacts on downtowns. We saw, you know, we're used to downtowns being those driving vibrant urban cores. We're used to downtowns being the sort of centers that people drive for, you know, from miles and miles away to come work downtown and then go back home. Or the advent of working from home, the advent of zoom and the teams meetings and things like that across the country and across the world, means that people are organizing their work in different ways, and so the very thing that downtowns across America were designed to be the rug is sort of snatched out from under it.
Mayor Melvin Carter:And as it turns out and this is relevant to the work of the office of community safety in Minneapolis, we built an office of neighborhood safety that we call it in St Paul is that downtowns just weren't designed to be empty. And so St Paul, Minneapolis, alongside every Rochester, every city, major city in the country, saw increases in numbers of people sheltering outdoors downtown, saw increases in public safety challenges downtown, and some of those things are either operating as a vicious cycle or a virtuous cycle, and so getting people back downtown is very relevant to making sure that people feel comfortable downtown and feel safe downtown. Making sure that we're connecting people to quality housing and other types of options is relevant to all of that. We're excited that our momentum is continuing to grow. We've got great partners downtown St Paul in the Minnesota Wild and the St Paul Saints and the Science Museum and a number of great partners that are bringing folks downtown. But continuing to grow that momentum, continuing to build on the momentum, is one of the biggest challenges for us.
Bill Von Bank:Let's talk opportunities. Mayor Frey, you just alluded to the fact that your task force just put forth some recommendations, specifically around Nicollet Mall. Can you talk a little bit about opportunities and some of those recommendations to bring business back downtown?
Mayor Jacob Frey:Anytime you have massive change. It's also an opportunity to do things differently and better, And one of the primary areas of opportunity is with the space that we have. We in Minneapolis are presently back to around 65 to 70% occupancy downtown. And I imagine we'll get up to 80 or even 85%, But we're not getting back to 100. And I think everybody recognizes that. So what do you do with that remaining 20% of space? And I think it's an opportunity to shift that space towards something that is working more, which is a diversity of use.
Mayor Jacob Frey:You know, if you look at areas of all of our city, there are certain neighborhoods that are just bumping. It's like nobody in those neighborhoods ever even got COVID. And largely speaking, those neighborhoods have a beautiful diversity of use, everything from entertainment to commercial, office space, residential, even light industrial, all in the same space. North Loop is an example of that in Minneapolis. And now is our opportunity to transition some of that space in our downtown core. So it's not just a bunch of offices where people go from nine to five. You have a vibrant street life that's around the clock. You've got somebody pushing a stroller, you've got somebody else who's working the night shift, someone else maybe is going for a run or going to the bar. These are things that you can have all in one neighborhood even at the same time, And that's what we want to see in our downtown core. It's an opportunity.
Bill Von Bank:And the makeup of the task force was business owners and community leaders. It was a broad range of folks, correct? Very broad range. Yes. Mayor Norton, opportunities for downtown Rochester. And you also have some recommendations from a task force to lean in on and move forward.
Mayor Kim Norton:We do, indeed, and I would say a couple of things. Our downtowns are slightly different than Minneapolis and St Paul because Rochester is home to the largest business in the state, which is Mayo Clinic, and so healthcare is provided right in the middle of our downtown all the time, and that didn't change during the pandemic, and it continues today, so we have patients that are downtown every single day. However, we still, too, have empty buildings and are trying to figure out as businesses, retail has changed, how people purchase has changed, where they're purchasing has changed, what can we do with those buildings? And we talked a little bit during the legislative session about what are some things we could ask the state for to help us be able to retrofit these buildings into housing, for instance. And again, our community is slightly different, but we, too, are focusing on density and rather to contain costs in our city.
Mayor Kim Norton:So we want density downtown, which means more housing in the core, and so we're trying to find ways to do that. So I really think our communities have to be innovative and creative, but we also are going to need some help, perhaps at the next session, from our legislature to enable us to make those changes to some of these buildings that we just, or our building owners, are going to be unable to do without a little bit of help.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Carter, how about opportunities for St Paul?
Mayor Melvin Carter:You know I'm going to sound a lot like my colleague mayors, and that no surprise, because they're brilliant leaders of their communities. I think the existential challenges that we've seen downtown space create existential opportunities. It creates a mandate to grow and it creates a mandate to thrive. I agree with everything that's already been said, so I won't burden you with with repeating all of those things, but ultimately I think this is true in St Paul and I think it's true in many cities that there are communities that there often ends up being this sort of downtown versus the rest of the city dynamic where building housing or making investments or, you know, cultural activities is concerned. And you find people in every community who would, would kind of tell you that downtown isn't for me, right Like I'm. You know they don't. They're not looking for me to go downtown, they're not looking for me to open a business downtown, they're not looking for me to hang out or go shopping downtown.
Mayor Melvin Carter:And the existential crisis that we faced over the last couple of years really means that if we, any of our downtowns want to stay vibrant, if we want to stay relevant and competitive, we have to get rid of that It's not for me kind of mentality. We have to be intentional about connecting our downtown both physically, so that means you know transit routes and bike lanes and sidewalks and ways for folks to get downtown but also, even more importantly, economically and emotionally, making sure that people see themselves downtown, see their community downtown, see themselves reflected, welcome and invited to be and just to spend their time downtown. I think that's going to be a core part of every downtown's future. That's going to be that's going to thrive in the future.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Carter, I'm intrigued by your grow downtown program, facilitated by the St Paul Downtown Alliance, providing six months of free rent for new businesses locating downtown. Can you talk about the program and how it's been received?
Mayor Melvin Carter:We've had the opportunity to recruit businesses downtown that again never would have expected to be able to sort of pay to play at a downtown price.
Mayor Melvin Carter:Never saw themselves kind of in a skyscraper and, you know, in the in the sky away system or something like that, being able to open in those spaces, bring their customer base downtown but also expose themselves, expose their business, expose their products to a much broader universe of clients that they're able to and customers that they're able to tap into.
Mayor Melvin Carter:So it's been something that's really exciting for us. And it's been enormously well received by some of our downtown business leaders because, you know, one of the things that we need, we actually ended up moving some city staff out of City Hall into some of our downtown storefronts to just make sure that we're kind of creating a vibrant kind of space for folks. So the added vitality, the added vibrance, the added somebody who's kind of got a stake downtown, got a stake in this building, got a stake in this storefront, has been really welcome. It's been a great opportunity for those business businesses. It's been exciting. You know we've gotten seeing a lot of excitement from our downtown residents And the truth is, the other building owners, the other business owners are pleased as punch to have them there.
Bill Von Bank:Are there so many businesses you can support as the funding 10, 20, 30, or does it just keep coming?
Mayor Melvin Carter:You know, our goal is to push as many as possible.
Mayor Melvin Carter:Certainly, you know, every funding stream is limited, but one of the opportunities that we have, and again because you know, to Mayor Frey's point about not being anywhere back near 100% occupancy the building owners see, see their own stake, and the truth is it's harnessing something that was already happening organically, in that building owners in every downtown have been sort of writing down rents, and, you know, giving folks a month off here, six months off here, three months off here.
Mayor Melvin Carter:If it's done sort of in the buddy system, then it's behind closed doors and it becomes something that could risk increasing disparities in a city, which is why it's important for us to sort of put that program on the table and say, you know, and intentionally invite a broader set of businesses, of investors, into our downtown. And so, yes, of course there's always limited kind of capacity and limited resources. In this case, though, like I said, the businesses want the vibrancy, the business, the businesses want the vitality and what they want, the people in their spaces, and so a lot of what we're doing is harnessing real incredible goodwill by building owners who are really excited to have new tenants there. That's fascinating.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Frey it was recently announced that developer Sherman Associates is converting the old 13 story North Star Center East Office tower in downtown Minneapolis into residential units. Can you share some details about the project and the city's involvement? Yes, I can.
Mayor Jacob Frey:So this is a building just a few blocks from city hall.
Mayor Jacob Frey:That is older, relatively historic, and has traditionally been the home of office space, a whole lot of people working there And, as we discussed earlier, there's not as many people that are coming into the office to work, and that is the case in every single major city and minor city across America. And so, working together in conjunction with Sherman Associates, we planned out a vision to get some historic tax credits for this building and to begin to shift it to residential. Now there's a few things that I want to point out. First, this was a building that was ripe for that conversion because it's older, and what we're finding is that buildings that are put up after World War II are not conducive to the shift to residential, because they're those tall glass skyscrapers where you can't open a window. Now people generally like to be able to have, you know, air and water where they live, and you can't do that in those newer buildings.
Mayor Jacob Frey:However the older buildings you can open the window, you can shift the floor plate around, you can have a bathroom or a toilet in every room, which is something also people generally like, and so we targeted some of these older buildings, like the North Star East Building for housing specifically both market rate and affordable housing, and we were able to provide some financing directly to them to get the job done.
Bill Von Bank:That was going to be my next question about redeveloping and reimagining downtown office buildings, a trend moving forward.
Mayor Jacob Frey:I think absolutely. It's a trend, and we were just at the US Conference of Mayors just a few days ago and that was one of the main topics that we were discussing. I think it's going to be a trend nationwide. The question is how to finance it and do it. An area that we're going to be focusing on first is our warehouse district, which has a whole lot of those relatively historic buildings And it's kind of that gap between North Loop, which is seeing a ton of success, and our downtown core, which is not as vibrant yet. The warehouse district is the one that I think is going to help catalyze some of that shift and movement, and we're going to have a lot of emphasis there.
Mayor Melvin Carter:You know we're definitely going to have limited resources but unlimited need. You're asked if it's a trend, it's a mandate, it's a requirement, it's the only option moving forward. And just like I just mentioned that downtown and surrounding neighborhoods end up pitted against one another in the political space, in City Hall, at the state capitol, our cities in the surrounding regions end up getting pitted against each other in the same way. There's no question that Rochester, there's no question that St Paul, there's no question that Minneapolis, the economic activity and the vibrancy that happens within all three of those cities, benefit folks in Thief River Falls, benefit folks all over the state. And that you know, and this is where we really going to have to rely on the leadership at the state capitol to really lean into that One Minnesota notion to understand that. You know we'll need investment beyond our sort of local tax base, local property tax base, to facilitate some of those shifts. We'll need investment as we all grapple with the increased numbers of unsheltered residents that we've experienced in St Paul. In just a matter of a couple of weeks, at the onset of the pandemic, we saw a tenfold increase in the number of residents sheltering outdoors. Not all of them grew up in St Paul. If you ask them where they grew up, some of them tell you every part of the state, they'll tell you the Midwest, they'll tell you all over the country, they'll tell you all over the world.
Mayor Melvin Carter:But one of the challenges is not every place in the state provides the level of kind of housing supports that our core cities provide. And so what do you do if you're, if you become housing insecure in a place that doesn't provide the level of housing supports? you move into a city, you move to a space that does So, our core cities end up holding up a region in a state full of need, and when we go to the Capitol and say, listen, we need help to be able to do that. It's not just that, you know, mayor Norton's just trying to help the folks who were born in Rochester have housing. It's that we have people come into our communities who are from all over the state, who are part of community together, and it's unsustainable for the cities like the, just what Mayor Frey was talking about. It's unsustainable. It's not possible for the cities to hold up a state full of need, a region full of need, on their own, which is why we'll need that support from the Capitol.
Mayor Kim Norton:I would echo what we're hearing here. We may have it on a smaller scale in our community than than they're experiencing up in the Twin Cities, just because of the size of our communities, but we struggle with the same issues. We're not unique, and we hear that at the US Conference of Mayors, as Mayor Frey pointed out these issues across the country. The one thing that I think we have to grapple with in Rochester again maybe slightly different is we have medical patients who are living in our downtown hotels waiting for treatment or coming back from treatment, recovering from surgery. So when we hear our community members saying we want a more active nightlife, we have patients who don't want to hear active nightlife as they're recovering or waiting for a surgery. It's a very different approach, so we have to look to have more vibrant evenings.
Bill Von Bank:An evening economy.
Mayor Kim Norton:An evening economy rather than a late night economy. It still needs to be fun And, frankly, development doesn't always have to be downtown. It's okay to have a thriving area of town elsewhere, outside of downtown, and I do hope that to the point. And I would love to talk to my colleagues about how they get building owners to open up to more creative ideas. But you know, when you have first floor retail in our newer buildings and older buildings that are that vacated their businesses left for a variety of reasons during the pandemic what could we do differently? What kind of could they have pop up stores? Could they have art allowed in their windows? Or I love the idea of having city staff, although they're working from home too, right. How can we make it more vibrant, even in the short term, as we recover, so that it looks like a fun and safe place to be? And I think we need more cooperation from some of those building owners, and I'm not sure exactly how to get it, but I think that's part of the solution moving ahead.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Norton, let's talk about Mayo Clinic because they continue to invest in downtown Rochester And they've recently announced major developments for some long-term funding to really grow downtown in a big way. And we can talk about that. And then it's directly linked to the Destination Medical Center initiative.
Mayor Kim Norton:They do have support from their board to with some enabling language to start the research. The board has not yet voted on what that will look like, so we're a little limited.
Bill Von Bank:It's still conceptual.
Mayor Kim Norton:It's conceptual, but it does look to be a number of buildings and some of them quite multiple blocks long. That will really transform the way health care is given in this country and maybe the world. They're really on cutting edge, and so we are looking for the Destination Medical Center initiative, which was a $585 million economic development package for infrastructure development to make our community be able to support Mayo Clinic and other private development, was predicated on over $2 billion of investment from Mayo Clinic. I see this as part of that promise to Destination Medical Center. And there has already been some growth in the past, with a new proton beam center being opened. We already have one. We're adding to it because the need is so great.
Mayor Kim Norton:This is that next step. This is the fulfillment of what Destination Medical Center was meant to be, and we already have some wonderful private development. Some of the Sherman is looking to build some buildings downtown. Mortonson Construction has built Discovery Square One and Two and is looking at perhaps Three. We have the state investment. We have Mayo Clinic's investment, where you need to continue to encourage that private investment in order for the whole Destination Medical Center vision to be realized. So a lot of excitement in the community right now about that announcement. I know it was a little contentious at the end of the legislative session getting there, but we did and we're really excited about what can come.
Bill Von Bank:And you helped. Author. That bill.
Mayor Kim Norton:The Destination Medical Center bill. Yes, I did.
Bill Von Bank:Last February, United States Conference of Mayors convened a group of bipartisan mayors to discuss the rise in violent crime in cities across the country and how mayors are responding. Can you give a progress report on public safety initiatives in your cities, Mayor Carter?
Mayor Melvin Carter:Public safety is a perfect example of what it's like to be a mayor every day. I'm sure the three of us all experience the same thing. Every day I hear from folks who can't wait to tell us how unsafe that they feel and how you know how the extent to which they feel like our public safety systems historically haven't worked, and oftentimes those are the exact same people who fight tooth and nail to keep us from changing our public safety systems. That's sort of the paradox of being a mayor. I tell folks all the time that a mayor is the person in a community who, when there are no good decisions left, when there are no good choices left, still has to pick one, and that ends up becoming a challenge.
Mayor Melvin Carter:We're doing a lot of work in St Paul to reimagine our approach to public safety. The three of us end up in some of the same kind of meetings, the same kind of Zoom calls, talking about what the approach to public safety is. I literally came here straight from a press conference that we announced a policy a couple of years ago that said we're not going to do non-public safety traffic stops anymore. And you know there are folks who look at it even as just a policy, as simple as that, and think the world is going to end. You'll learn quickly as a mayor, that the sun usually rises again the next day. And not only has the sun risen again, but we've been able to increase the percentage of stops that our police officers are doing for public safety purposes. You know, before we implemented this policy And again this is a press conference we did just earlier today. Before we implemented this policy, literally less than 70 percent of the stops our police officers were conducting on an annual basis were something that's really directly tied to public safety. You know we're talking about expired tabs or you know something hanging in a rearview mirror, things like that. And there's this fantasy land that we think you know where the police are out there pulling over somebody because they got a little pine tree in their rearview mirror and finding you know 17 illegal guns or something like that in the car. That doesn't actually happen. Nope, any police officer will tell you that that doesn't actually happen. We find, you know, I've heard estimates from 1% to 5% of those kinds of stops that actually result in some type of public safety outcome. It's just one example of how we're evolving our police work to ensure that a broader set of people can see themselves in it. We're evolving our thoughts about public safety.
Mayor Melvin Carter:Historically, you think about public safety and people jump straight to police, prisons and prosecutors. Well, that's emergency response. That's how we respond to an emergency, and that's important. It's not public safety, though I mean. So it's a part of public safety. Safety has to start with how we safeguard our communities against violence outcomes happening in the first place. So that's a lot of the work that we're doing to identify cycles of crime, cycles of violence, and interrupt those cycles everywhere we, everywhere we can, whether that's around mental health, chemical health, whether that's housing, whether that's making sure that people have access to jobs and support in community. Public safety has to be far more expansive than we have ever thought of about it in America. All of American history proves that. So we don't necessarily have to prove it, we just have to lean into it, and that's, i think, what some of the work that mayors across the country are doing right now.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Frey.
Mayor Jacob Frey:Minneapolis. We're making some serious progress. There are times and I'm sure my fellow mayors see this when the perception matches the reality, and there are times when the perception is wildly different than the reality And you know honestly, at least over the last couple of years, in, you know, late 2020 and 2021, yeah, crime was up. It was a massive national trend And we saw crime increase in our cities as well.
Mayor Jacob Frey:Over this last, I would say, half year plus, crime is down dramatically, and specifically violent crime, And I make people like repeat the phrase crime is down with me, because they need to, not just when I'm in the room, but then to each other And then when they're out and when they're beyond the city. And you know, i have to attach some of the statistics to the rhetoric here, because homicides are down 35%, carjackings are down 40%, robbery is down 20%, shots fired down 30%. In fact, last month, the month of May, we had fewer shots fired than pre pandemic levels in 2018 and 2019, which, by the way, were two of the best years that we 've ever had in terms of crime. So this is not just like me trying to paint a rosy picture when it's not going well. Things are going well They're. And, by the way, when I say things are going well, that doesn't mean we're done. That doesn't mean we're all sitting on our hands and we're going to start watching Netflix and doing non mayoring stuff whatever that is, i do some non mayoring stuff, right?
Mayor Kim Norton:What is that?
Mayor Jacob Frey:It means you keep working and you keep that trajectory and that positive momentum going and Mayor Carter is doing that important work in St Paul is his mayor Norton around, having it not just be an officer response. You know you need prevention before the response, you need healing after the response And we're working at providing kind of those, that full wrap around service and care that people are going to need.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Norton progress report.
Mayor Kim Norton:Again I will repeat some of the same things we've heard. Violent crime is definitely down. Rochester has a very safe community and very low levels of crime, certainly a little different than big cities because we're only a city of 124,000. It is somewhat different. But we've also changed our policing models as well. Minnesota made the news We all know that It's not a secret And Minnesota has responded with.
Mayor Kim Norton:You know, all three of these mayors here have responded in different ways. We had an active corresponds prior to the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. We've done corresponds for a long time. We've added to that and we've increased it And we do rapid response. Now We have a violence interruption task force or priority group that meets and that has made a significant difference in getting things ahead, getting ahead of things and stopping them before they happen. So I would say our homelessist task force too has been proactive. So I think that proactive policing has been helpful and all the other changes that we have made, as well as watching the pandemic leave. It's not gone 100% yet, I can't say that, But as that has lessened in our communities the mental health has started to improve. I think all of us would probably agree that there have been challenges with mental health when people are home and alone and stressed, And that's starting to lighten up and that's making a difference in our communities as well.
Bill Von Bank:Minnesota is representing the US bid for Expo 2027. We're up against Thailand, serbia, spain and Argentina, with the announcement in just a couple weeks. Minnesota's theme is healthy people, healthy planet. The prospect of bringing an estimated 13.3 million attendees over 93 days to the Twin Cities is exciting, if not somewhat daunting. What are your thoughts regarding Expo 27 potentially being hosted here in Minnesota? Myron Orton.
Mayor Kim Norton:Well for our community as a healthcare community. we think we have a role to play in that, even though if it's selected it will be in Bloomington. I suspect you'll see buses because I want the light rail but I don't think we can get that built between now and 2027 if we happen to be selected. But that would be my I'd have a vote for that to get people to come down to Mayo Clinic and you know America's City for Health and explore what we have to offer as well. So we will certainly be ready when that comes, and I think it's. it would be exciting for our state and it would be exciting for our community And I think we will all find ways to try to draw international visitors into what we offer in our unique you know our unique offerings in each of our unique cities. So we'll be ready.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Frey.
Mayor Jacob Frey:Yeah, we will be ready. The Twin Cities are consistently known as the healthiest cities in the entire country. I don't know exactly how they make that calculation, but I'll take the honor nonetheless. And you know, i can't tell you how many of my friends have come out from the East Coast And I say, hey, you know, what are you, what are you doing out here? And they say, oh, we're headed down to Rochester. And then I have to ask my next question a little bit more carefully because I'm not exactly sure for what.
Mayor Jacob Frey:But you know we do large scale events really well. We've got a combination of Taylor Swift and Pride the same weekend very shortly here. All of our cities have had large-scale events and we're excited about the prospect of getting the not the World's Fair, but the World's Expo. I've been trying to make sure my terminology is correct there, but I think it could be a really exciting prospect and a way to highlight that which sets Minnesota as a whole apart. And one of the first things that I recognized when I came out here to run a marathon was everybody's active, everybody's doing something, you know, whether it's cross-country skiing to work, which, surprisingly, some people literally do It's getting out in the middle of the winter to run, or it's just making sure that your neighbor has got the right mindset and all he or she needs for mental health. I mean, it's truly a healthy state and something we're proud of And, i think, something we can highlight for the world.
Mayor Melvin Carter:We're absolutely healthy state, we're an exciting place to be And I'm excited about the proposal and the prospect.
Mayor Melvin Carter:One of the things you learn quickly if you grew up or just moved to Minnesota is that the number one rule of a good Midwesterner is when you think something's exciting or has a lot of potential, a lot of promise, you have to make sure nobody knows it. And we have followed that rule to our death right, like to our own detriment. And it's why when we host people for the Super Bowl or we host people for the Final Four, we host people for the Frozen Four or something We all hear it. People go back to them and go oh, i actually liked it there, you know, as though they're surprised, and that's our failure because we haven't told our story, we haven't shown them the extent to which, if all they see from Minnesota is the horrible footage of the murder at George Floyd, if all they know about Minnesota is that it sometimes snows a whole lot there, and they don't even know we get out and run in the snow, we get out and do cross-country, and every now and then.
Mayor Kim Norton:Every now and then to all cities just have a snowball fight against one another. I love that.
Mayor Melvin Carter:Then, of course, we'll be chasing our tail when it comes time to tell people what an incredible space this is. So, one, i absolutely believe we'll be ready. We'll be ready to knock the socks off of all our visitors from around the world. But two, i gotta say I'm just really glad to live in a state that'll go for something that big, that'll go for something that aspirational, and I look forward to showing that that really is who we are as a state.
Bill Von Bank:And I think it's the first time any world expo or fair, however you determine it would potentially be in the United States since, like 1984, in New Orleans, it's a pretty long time, that's a long gap, that's a pretty long time.
Mayor Kim Norton:I love this idea of we don't tell our own story. in the state of Minnesota, in the city of Rochester, we don't tell it well enough to the rest of the world. We have an extremely high quality of life in this state. We have wonderful assets and we have. you know, yes, we have a few months of winter, but to your point, have a snowball fight with your neighbor and enjoy, you know, the few months we have of snow. The rest of the year is so gorgeous. Everybody's jealous. you know that they're not here And we have to do a better job of letting folks know that. you know the cost of living is lower, the education of our populace is higher, we have a lot to sell about our cities and our state.
Mayor Melvin Carter:You know, i went to college in Florida and I left sort of on a one way ticket at 18 years old. I wanted to a place that you know was warmer, and that was pretty much it. As a runner. That was pretty important to me. Just four years later, four years later, we'll say there are a whole lot of things that were more important to me than just, you know, sunlight, and I'm this kind of nerd. So I pulled out a spreadsheet and started putting in all the things that I wanted in it in a place to live, and I found out really fast that I love Minnesota And I ended up coming right back here.
Mayor Melvin Carter:We forget sometimes that we're the type of state, that we're the type of community that somebody from Florida or somebody from Thailand or somebody from Somalia or somebody from all over the world but people do it every day. They choose to come here, and so I think a lot of the problem really is exactly what you just said. We don't tell our own story. We're sort of the kid in class who thinks I'm going to just be quiet and I'm going to quietly know the answer and somebody's going to call on me and I'm going to get recognized. I'm just glad to be in a state that's raising our hand.
Bill Von Bank:That's right, this has been an awesome conversation. One final question What excites you about the future opportunities for current and prospective residents and businesses in your cities, mayor Frey?
Mayor Jacob Frey:It's so hard to pick just one thing. The most exciting piece I see is that we are flinging open our doors right now to the whole world. We had the murder of George Floyd in our city, and it's something that we don't just acknowledge, but we're doing something about it. We in Minnesota want to be an example for the rest of the country to follow, and right now I can tell you for the first time in a couple of years, when people ask how I'm doing, i say I'm doing well, and I'm not lying to myself when I say that Things are getting dramatically better. You cannot just see the sunlight at the end of the tunnel, but I feel like we're approaching it, and so there's not one thing that I think I could focus on, necessarily, but something that has just given me personally a whole lot of inspiration, especially over the last couple of years, is how tough and resilient the people of our state are.
Mayor Jacob Frey:They don't quit. They get knocked down and they get right back up again and they fight and they believe in the state, they believe in the cities that they love, and I think we're rebounded in fine form.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Carter, what excites you about the future of your city?
Mayor Melvin Carter:You know and this invokes the conversation we started with the future of downtown I think one shift that we've seen and Mayor Frey said that you know we've seen an acceleration of the thing, the fault lines that already existed, and so this was a trend before COVID, but I think it just took off during COVID is companies are no longer choosing the place that gives them the biggest tax break, the choosing the places that their employees want to be. They have to choose the place that their employees want to live and they have to choose the place where they can source employees. And so when I think about the elements that I believe that will position a city, a metropolitan area, a state to succeed into the future, i think it's pretty clear. Our young folks have cast their vote for multimodal transportation and we're building it in Minnesota. I don't know, mayor Norton, the radar legislature is moving. We might get that light real built in the next couple of years. They've cast their vote for natural amenities.
Mayor Melvin Carter:We in St Paul are excited to boast the number two park system in the country. Minneapolis is number three And that means we have some pretty doggone good. And, by the way, washington DC is number one and they get national, they get federal funding for the National Mall. So we kind of put an asterisk by that. All that to say is you know, we've got the Mississippi River.
Mayor Melvin Carter:As it turns out, the Mississippi River is pretty important river in the country And I think there's an enormous amount of opportunity between St Paul and Minneapolis across the state to sort of reface our communities back towards the river. That we're taking advantage of. We've got in Rochester the largest, one of the best health systems in the world. We've got, you know, our parks and our river, our natural amenities, all these universities. We punch above our weight in terms of Fortune 500 companies. There are so much right here. The innovation community is incredible. There's so much right here to look forward to. And I really think that you know, as we're continuing to build this momentum in Minnesota, as the world is more and more seeing what's coming out of Minnesota just as weekend there was a Washington Post editorial about the miracle that's happened in Minnesota right now And it feels like for our young people, for our businesses, for our families, for our communities of color, that we are really building a state that's showing the rest of the country how it's done.
Bill Von Bank:Mayor Norton, what excites you about Rochester's future?
Mayor Kim Norton:Well, these two have hit the nail on the head, as they say. The notes and the thoughts I put together ahead of time are mirrored in these comments. I think, whether we get the expo here or not, we are known as an innovative place to be for healthcare, for bioscience, for technology, and I think the rest of the world, who is having its own problems the rest of the United States in particular are having water issues will guess who has water. That's right, that's right.
Mayor Kim Norton:I'm afraid they're all going to be coming for it, but I do think we can bring them here, not just for water but for our high quality of life, and I mentioned that earlier and in my notes, so I'm not going to repeat the things I know we'll have to wrap up that my colleagues here have said, but I wrote down we have to sell ourselves our high quality life and that we live close to the Twin Cities.
Mayor Jacob Frey:You're proud to have you close to the Twin Cities, Sharon.
Bill Von Bank:Well, i am proud that the three of you could find time in your busy schedules to join a Sungrowing Destinations podcast today Mayor Frey from Minneapolis, mayor Carter from St Paul and Mayor Norton from Rochester. Thank you very much.
Mayor Jacob Frey:Thank you, thank you.
Bill Von Bank:Thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations podcast And don't forget to subscribe. This podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Find out more about Rochester, Minnesota, and its growing arts and culture scene, its international culinary flavors and award-winning craft beer by visiting experience RochesterMNcom.