Growing Destinations
Your go-to source for insightful discussions on destination development. The Growing Destinations podcast delves into the strategies, challenges, and successes that drive community growth. Each episode features in-depth conversations with local and national experts, uncovering universal themes and innovative practices that can be applied to any city or region.
Growing Destinations
Guiding Rochester, Minnesota’s Transformation: Alison Zelms on Urban Growth and Community Vibrancy
Join us for an insightful conversation with Alison Zelms, City Administrator of Rochester, Minnesota. Discover how Rochester is transforming from a "big little city" to a "little big city," blending global ambitions with its beloved local charm. Learn how strategic partnerships and destination marketing are shaping Rochester's identity as a city where world-class medical innovation meets an exceptional quality of life.
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 experiencerochestermncom.
Alison Zelms:We do have a small town feel to us, even though we're the third biggest city population-wise and second biggest geographically in the state. So how do we continue that community character of neighborliness and continue to grow and transform and welcome new people in and allow that neighborliness to maybe be an expanded cultural experience?
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. Rochester is a city on the move. Minnesota's third largest city is experiencing tremendous growth and that growth is expected to continue for years, fueled in part by Destination Medical Center and Mayo Clinic's bold, forward unbound initiative to transform healthcare and reimagine its campus in downtown Rochester. Guiding the city through this period of rapid evolution is my guest AlZelms
Bill Von Bank:Zelms, rochester's city Administrator. With a leadership philosophy grounded in collaboration, innovation and community-focused outcomes, alison is at the forefront of shaping Rochester's future. Alison, welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast.
Alison Zelms:Thanks, bill, glad to be here.
Bill Von Bank:We have a lot to talk about related to Rochester and its growth, but first let's talk a little bit more about you and your career journey.
Alison Zelms:Well, I got interested in, I guess, public service, not necessarily local government Growing up in the Air Force. My dad was in the Air Force. We moved around a lot and I would say probably the defining moment in my life that made me interested in communities is living in West Germany. When it was still West Germany we traveled a lot. We went all across Europe while we were there for about four years and also went through Checkpoint Charlie to East Germany. So I would say that just always stands out in my mind as being sort of like the Wizard of Oz in reverse, going from color to black and white, and it's just always stayed with me that many people, most people, don't really get to choose where they live and the experiences that they have, and so it's really important that as government employees, we provide the best opportunities for as many people as possible in the place that they do live.
Bill Von Bank:And what inspired you to pursue a career in local government and city administration?
Alison Zelms:Well, I knew I didn't want to take a lot of science and math and hard stuff when I was in college and I was always interested in some kind of public service. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, actually until I got to grad school. So I went through undergrad at Augustana College in Northern Illinois and studied public administration and Spanish and Latin American studies and applied to grad schools because I still didn't quite know what I wanted to do and made my way to the University of Kansas that has the number one program for public administration. So I really fell in love with local government and understood more about what the opportunities were there when I was in grad school and had an internship at the state of Kansas. And then you needed to fulfill a full-time employment with a city in order to actually graduate from the University of Kansas graduate program. So my second year there I was employed full-time at the University of Park, texas city down in Texas and first time in Texas, and that's where I started my work with cities.
Bill Von Bank:I am curious, however, because in addition to your college career, you also spent some time on stage doing improv, so tell us more about that.
Alison Zelms:Sure, I did not start my life knowing what I wanted to do. Right, I knew what I thought I might be good at and that I guess I always thought you needed to have like a job, a career. But in my heart of hearts I was always kind of clowning around when I was in high school with friends and loved Saturday Night Live and in my dream world I would have been on Saturday Night Live. So when I was working for the city of Evanston on the North Shore of Chicago, I actually did Second City. So I was enrolled there and had a troupe, the Carlos the Terrible, shocking name. I don't even remember why we named it that, but I actually got to perform at the Second City while I was there. So it was harder than it looked and all improv, not Saturday Night Live. They actually have a skit that they're. You know they have writers. This was just games on stage and having to go with the flow.
Bill Von Bank:How do you use that experience in your administrative role?
Alison Zelms:Working for a city. I mean, it's sort of like hopping on a fast-moving train when you join a new community or when a new elected official joins a community. They get elected, but there's so many things happening, especially in a city like Rochester where you have just this unprecedented amount of growth occurring. It's really helpful to not have to have everything planned out. We have a lot of planning that we do here, but any given day there could be some new surprise that's happening. So, being able to go with the flow and just sort of not be phased by the unexpected and say yes and yes and instead of no, because you can't really control what's happening, you have to really guide it and hope for a positive outcome and do everything you can to get the positive outcome. But you don't always get to plan your day out.
Bill Von Bank:What attracted you to the role of city administrator in Rochester, Minnesota?
Alison Zelms:Well, that is an interesting story. I was not looking for a new position. I was working for the city of Mankato and our motto there was sort of related to Rochester Less filling tastes great in Mankato there. So lots of similarities, similar points of view and similar things happening on the ground over time in the last 20 years expansion of the Civic Center, et cetera. I saw the job posting in the middle of the night. I woke up in the middle of the night on one Friday night, couldn't sleep and was scrolling through LinkedIn and saw the job posting, and then the next morning I don't. I never. I would always go north, to like go to Costco at Burnsville, and I would never thought to go east on Highway 14. Of course there'd been a lot of construction on Highway 14. And I said hey to my partner, bob, let's, maybe let's swing over to Rochester this weekend. They have a Thai place. We like Thai food. So we came over and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I put my hat in the ring and here I am.
Bill Von Bank:Here you are in a community facing unprecedented growth. Did you imagine when you took this role that Rochester would be involved in so much development so quickly?
Alison Zelms:I sort of did. I was trying to look into a lot of detail when I was looking to see whether or not I thought I might be a good fit and enjoy my time here, be helpful to the community, my time here, be helpful to the community and looking at some of the initiatives the destination medical center was working on and the significant change that they were looking at, and having worked with Mayo Clinic Health System and Mankato, I had an idea of some of the changes they were looking at and their prior strategic plan. So I had a sense that there was going to be a lot happening here, of course, all of it coming together at the same time with a lot of city projects as well, over the next seven years. I didn't necessarily anticipate that they would all be happening in the same seven years, but I guess it's a good problem to have, and now we will be guiding and shepherding that to the most successful fruition as possible.
Bill Von Bank:What opportunities and challenges do you see in aligning city services with this transformation?
Alison Zelms:Most cities don't get the opportunity to have such unprecedented change and think about how are we continuing to grow as an organization and change as an organization. So succession planning is going to be really important for the city organization over this period of time. Fortunately, the city council has approved the opportunity for us to staff up for Bold Forward Unbound, and that's all coming from building permit revenue and a lot of the work. You know the vast majority of the work. There's work that happens that isn't directly related to construction, but the lion's share of all of those folks will be focusing on all of the construction impacts and paid for in that way. So it gives us an opportunity to think about, as we move to the next phases in the next three, five, seven years, what else are we going to need?
Alison Zelms:I think the biggest challenge is going to be all of the construction, and so you know we have a very short construction season as far as roadways go, and we have a lot of that that's going to be torn up, so it's also an opportunity for us to dig once. So really get a lot of that that's going to be torn up. So it's also an opportunity for us to dig once. So really get a lot of older infrastructure that's underground completed with a large footprint and make sure that we're not back in this area again in decades.
Bill Von Bank:How does Rochester balance its identity as a global destination with maintaining its unique local character and quality of life for residents?
Alison Zelms:That is also, I think, on people's minds, maybe not in that specific of a question, but I always think of it as we are going from being a big little city to a little big city as we go through the hurdles of new transformation.
Alison Zelms:Especially downtown, we have a lot of global visitors, but we also have a lot of global people who move here to either work at the Mayo Clinic or other related business. So I think the key is really saying what do we still want to be as we continue to transform? What are the great things about our community that we want to make sure that we champion and that they remain intact? We do have a small town feel to us, even though we're the third biggest city population wise and second biggest geographically in the state. So how do we continue that community character of neighborliness and continue to grow and transform and welcome new people in and allow that neighborliness to maybe be an expanded cultural experience and feel slightly different, but still feel comfortable being in a larger community, not a big city, but a large community that also has those big city amenities?
Bill Von Bank:We hear this a lot that Rochester is so walkable and the urban core especially and micro mobility around the community is so great. Do you envision changes to that or making more amenities around that?
Alison Zelms:I would say so.
Alison Zelms:Part of what we are trying to do is making sure that as we transform whether that's private investment, mayo Clinic or other private investment or public amenities that the public areas are more walkable and they're more friendly and more inviting to walk.
Alison Zelms:One big thing that we have coming forth after many years of planning is Link Rapid Transit, and so the ability for people to even if they drive downtown but they never get back in their car again until they drive out of town being able to hop on and off fear-free from that system and being able to really get around downtown despite the season, I think is going to be a game changer, and I do think that as people start to see how easy that can be and how quick that, folks will consider asking the city okay, what direction are you going next on phase two? So those are things that we're thinking about now as we get very much into the construction phase of phase one. We need to start thinking now about that, seven years from now, about what other direction are we going? Are we going to go east? Are we going north? Are we going south? What is the most valuable opportunity to bring people to the core from, maybe not the edge of the city, but further out within the city.
Bill Von Bank:A referendum was passed to continue with a half-cent sales tax in the city over the next 20 years to really help with a number of different development opportunities. One of those is a new sports complex. Can you share some details on that?
Alison Zelms:We are knee-deep in that as well. So we have a lot of consultants on board. We have site selection still before us and site layout, so now we have a construction manager at risk on board. We also have an architectural firm and an operator at risk. That actually is. They're all working together to look at making sure that we have the most usable facility. Of course, you didn't mention the dollar amount $65 million which sounds like a lot of money until you start trying to construct a recreation facility to the standards that people would like, and I think our initial very 5% design phase had us, our desires being more like $90 million to $100 million worth of desire. So making sure we construct that in such a way in the first phase that meets as many needs as possible but doesn't prevent us from growth in the future, where it's designed in a way that it doesn't make sense to ever expand. So really focusing on how do we operate it well in its first stages and then making sure that it's built with that future expansion in mind.
Bill Von Bank:And certainly has the opportunity to ensure that local residents' needs are met with it. But it's also an opportunity to grow the visitor economy, because you already have infrastructure in place to accommodate visitors who might use a sports facility, and oftentimes that's on a weekend. So can you share a little insight around that?
Alison Zelms:Absolutely, and I've worked in other communities like Sedona, arizona, where we always talked about the shoulder season and for folks who aren't touristy or destination marketing savvy, that's the season where you're slower, and our shoulder season in Rochester is the weekend, because people come for medical care throughout the week. Sometimes they'll get here on Sunday evening, but that means we have a about 6,000 hotel rooms that are not that busy on the weekend and also not that expensive. So it does have a great opportunity for there to be tournaments and other activity here on the weekend. But, as you pointed out, really getting that right mix of programming and design in the facility will mean that it can also be very busy throughout the week for youth sports, for our local community, for seniors, for other types of uses, and still be that great amenity on the weekend for more revenue generating tourism.
Bill Von Bank:Well, you mentioned destination marketing and you were the keynote speaker at the Upper Midwest Convention and Visitors Bureau's annual meeting this past fall that was hosted in Rochester. Your presentation focused on embracing bold collaboration. Can you share the key takeaways from your presentation and why collaboration is essential for creating destination vibrancy?
Alison Zelms:Sure. Well, that's just a little callback to my Saturday Night Live desire days and going to improv school. I just think it's so important to embrace risk right, it doesn't mean you always take the risk, but embracing the ideas of taking risks, especially with our partners, and saying what's the worst thing that could happen. I think that we should try this and kind of fail forward in the city of Rochester 121,000 residents, many, many visitors and really focusing on how can we each take our best foot forward to make sure that this is a great place to live and also to visit. And I was inspired at the annual meeting from Experience Rochester that if you make a place that people want to visit, then you make a place where people want to live. And if you make a place where people want to live, then you make a place where people need to work and then where people want to live. And if you make a place where people want to live, then you make a place where people need to work and then where people need to have a business. And there's this flywheel that happens.
Alison Zelms:And so, acting with confidence, thinking really hard about the timing of decisions, those types of things are important. They all are all things that you have to think about in improv too. If you don't have the right timing, no one's going to laugh because it won't make any sense. If you don't have the right timing in government, then it may be too soon for people to really adapt and change. Or if you don't act when the opportunity is available, it might not be available again for 10, 20 years. So there's just a lot to think about, and making sure that you have strong relationships with your partners really helps in those risky moments for people to take that leap forward together.
Bill Von Bank:How do you view the economic impact of visitors to Rochester, particularly with its dual identity as a medical destination and a growing tourism hub?
Alison Zelms:Well, I live in the Northeast so I think about it as the downtown is sort of my backyard.
Alison Zelms:There are places I can go up in the Northeast, but it's just as fast for me to go west on East Circle Drive yes, go west on East Circle Drive as it is for me to come into town and go downtown and eat.
Alison Zelms:So we have to have a certain type of service, amenity, a certain amount of hospitality. Business and living in a community that can serve a global customer like those who come to the Mayo Clinic, is really a great opportunity. We have an international airport. You can get from Rochester to anywhere and back just right down the street at the local airport. So it is something that is unique. But if we can really catalyze the fact that we are a global destination and make ourselves also a regional destination, a statewide destination and a national destination and not just have people when they come here and they need to be here for care, think about coming back, whether that's to start a business, whether that's to own a home, whether that's to visit during different seasons when they weren't able to be here, or when they're well because they've been cured at the Mayo Clinic I think that's really a unique opportunity that we have, because people come and experience us very differently when they're here for care than they might if they came back for leisure.
Bill Von Bank:One other business opportunity for the community and it's a big one is the convention business, and the city owns a 200,000 square foot convention center. So how do you view that as a piece to this economic vibrancy puzzle?
Alison Zelms:I would say the destination marketing is really important. It puts us on the map because people hear about the different things that are available. It also puts us in touch with our partners in communities that are near us. So I know there's a lot of partnership with the National Eagle Center so we can be the hub where someone stays and then goes out on the spokes to some of their visits. But we also in the convention business have such opportunity to bring care here.
Alison Zelms:So I know that we had I'm going to get this wrong but the Nurses Association, which is an association of nurses associations who have conventions. They were just in town last week and so being able to showcase that you could be here in the home of the Mayo Clinic and have your convention, especially if it's medical related whether that's devices or actual medical practitioners is excellent. It also provides an opportunity to have a wonderful local amenity for local events. So we really appreciate the partnership with Experience Rochester and the Convention Visitors Bureau operation because through those revenue producing conventions where people are here for city-wides for three or four days, staying in hotels and going out on the town, we also are able to provide reasonable cost or no cost opportunities for local groups to actually be in the building and experience such a wonderful amenity.
Bill Von Bank:How do you ensure that the benefits of tourism and destination marketing positively impact local residents and businesses, not just visitors?
Alison Zelms:I don't know that you can ensure it, but I think having a mindset that making sure that we're a place that people would want to visit makes this a place where people want to live.
Alison Zelms:So we have a huge trail system, a very extensive network of trails.
Alison Zelms:So as part of that walkability that you mentioned earlier, all of our flood control and water quality system also pretty much all of it has trails along with it or some sort of park amenity.
Alison Zelms:So I know that people in this community really value their parks and their trail system to get around, whether that's biking, walking for fitness or for leisure or to get where they're going. So I would say, if we lean into some of those outdoor experiences, that is probably one of the best crossovers that we have. But also having a healthy apartment market for people who maybe are only going to be here for a shorter period of time not necessarily a month or three months or something of that nature, but even two or three years for either medical education or for residency, etc. That they have a great experience here. That is sort of like a long visitor, like a long visitor, and they talk to people and invite people to come see them while they're here, and those are the same folks who might end up having a really great experience and thinking, wow, I didn't even know this little gem was here.
Bill Von Bank:Maybe it's something I should consider in a place where I might want to live. It's a story I've heard from many healthcare professionals. They're here for the two-year stint and all of a sudden, 30 years later, they're still here.
Alison Zelms:We do have a lot of folks that own homes in the Olmstead County zip code and also in the Maricopa County zip code. It is a very high percentage.
Bill Von Bank:In Arizona.
Alison Zelms:Yep. So whether they're going through the care network or something of that nature, or they received care here that they really enjoyed it, and so they're looking for it to come back in some capacity.
Bill Von Bank:Looking back what have been some of the most impactful moments of your career.
Alison Zelms:Well, some of them were kind of tragic, but it does kind of prepare you for anything, and when I was in the city of Prescott, arizona it just always comes to mind when people ask me this I was there during a tragic loss of 19 City of Prescott hot shots in a burn over event, and so that was kind of the ultimate pivot, the ultimate, not fun improv, where you just had to figure out how to make sure that you were providing the best support to the families and also the organization still has to continue to move and to be supported.
Alison Zelms:So it resulted in a lot of really long term challenges for the community, because obviously it just sort of became the tag for the community and they still it's almost 11 years out it's a day that I don't forget. So it is something, though, that I think shapes how I approach my work, in that anything can happen at any time and it probably also shapes how I approach my life is that I take a lot of gratitude for things that maybe other people wouldn't, and I really have a deep appreciation for my teammates at the city of Rochester that are out there doing hard work every day rain, shine, day, night and just the ability to come together and rally, so it probably does affect my teamwork a lot.
Bill Von Bank:What advice would you give to someone aspiring to take on leadership roles in local government or city administration? Say yes.
Alison Zelms:So it's a really simple one, but I think I learned a lot through my career by being I was in the room, so I said yes to meetings a lot that maybe people wondered why I was there and heard about ideas to work on things and put my hand up and said that I would help and lead. That I didn't. Probably I had to do a lot of research and learn about it, but it really helped me to understand the breadth and depth of work that we do as a community. I would say, whether it's from the elected side of the aisle or the appointed side of the aisle and elected officials have a really hard job. So just watch the meetings, get information, participate, get interested and curious in how things work and watch how that works and think about how you would maybe lead in that role.
Alison Zelms:You can learn a lot from experiences that you might have done differently, and you can also learn a lot from experiences where you think, wow, I don't know how they accomplished that. They did a really good job. So I would just say, lean in and say yes to things and get your foot in some door somewhere, whether that's on the elected side a board or a commission or, on the appointed side, some entry-level type of position or apply. There's a lot of unique similarities to business. We're not that different from business. We have a budget, we have processes, we have a finance department, we have HR, we have all of those more traditional roles that every organization needs. It's just in a government format.
Bill Von Bank:Allison Zelms, we're extremely glad you said yes to city administration. Best wishes on Rochester's tremendous growth and thank you for being our guest on the Growing Destinations podcast.
Alison Zelms:Thanks, Bill.
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 it's international culinary flavors and award winning craft beer by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
