Building Places People Want to Visit and Live

When we talk about destinations, we often focus on attracting visitors, but the strongest destinations are also great places to live: communities where people want to build careers, raise families, start businesses and connect with others. 

Join Alison Zelms, City Administrator for Rochester, MN, Mike Mornson, City Manager for Hopkins, MN and Sharon Hanson, City Administrator for Marshall, MN as they discuss building places people want to visit and live. 

This episode was recorded in Rochester, Minnesota during the 2026 League of Minnesota Cities Annual Conference, where local leaders from communities across the state gathered to share ideas, discuss challenges, and learn from one another. 

Transcript

Sponsor And The Big Idea

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The Growing Destinations Podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. From live music and local breweries to unforgettable dining, events, arts, and outdoor experiences, Rochester, Minnesota is full of energy, creativity, and surprises people don't always expect. This is Rochester Really. Learn more at Experience Rochester MN.com.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

The things that a community really wants are also the things that visitors want. And so people want to be a visitor in their own city and be proud of that when people come see them. And they also want to be authentic. So I think people want to feel welcome and like they belong in their community and also like other people feel welcome there.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

The best way cities can expand is to have what I call the three-legged stool. You need to have a mayor and council that gets it, has a vision, flies at 10,000 feet, doesn't get in the weeds. You got to have a staff that gets along well with the council and implements it, and then you've got to have your community, which is your residence. I've worked in five cities and I've had most of my cities that were all aligned. And when you're aligned, it's amazing what a city can do.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

We are a food production town, meaning that uh we have several large businesses that produce food for not only the state, of course, but the world. And so when you look at Minnesota's beginnings, it is agriculture. And you look at their future, it is agriculture.

Why Great Places Attract People

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Welcome to the Growing Destinations Podcast, your source for conversations about the ideas, people, and strategies shaping the future of destination development and community growth. I'm your host, Bill Von Bank. Today we're recording a special episode from Rochester, Minnesota, during the League of Minnesota City's annual conference, where local leaders from communities across the state have gathered to share ideas, discuss challenges, and learn from one another. When we talk about destinations, we often focus on attracting visitors. But the strongest destinations are also great places to live. Communities where people want to build careers, raise families, start businesses, and connect with others. That's the focus of today's conversation: building places people want to visit and live. Joining me are Allison Zelms, City Administrator for Rochester, Mike Mornson, City Manager for Hopkins, and Sharon Hansen, City Administrator for Marshall. Thank you all for being here.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Thanks, Bill.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Let's begin with a simple question.

The Personality Of Three Cities

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Every Minnesota City has its own personality. In a sentence or two, how would you describe the character of your community? Allison in Rochester?

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Well, Rochester is the third largest city in Minnesota, but what I like to describe Rochester as is a big little city. So we're a big city, we're a global community for health. But what I think our residents appreciate the most, and sometimes our visitors as well, is that we're really connected and we care about being a small town and have those relationships where people want to live and visit and revisit.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Mike, how about for Hopkins, the character of the community? For Hopkins, we always like to say it's everybody's hometown because we hear that from residents that have been here for 50 years or five years. We even hear it from Minnatonka residents that live in Minnetonka. It just reminds them of their hometown. That's why they moved here. And the people that make up our community, I think, are the characters in a good way because they're laid back, they're easy going, uh, they're looking for fun things to do, they're looking for a walkable community. So it's everybody's hometown would be our character.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Sharon for Marshall.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

We're about three hours southwest of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and about an hour and a half northeast of Sioux Falls. So a rural southwest Minnesota city. But I would describe Marshall as a leading regional city in southwest Minnesota. And our community is someone who's really never satisfied with uh where we're at and always asking about what's next.

What Thriving Communities Share

SPEAKER_01 3:47

When you think about communities that are thriving today, what do they have in common? What are the ingredients that make people want to live there and visitors want to spend time there? Sharon?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Well, I know Mike mentioned the people in the community, and I think that's true for Marshall as well. Our median age is 32. Part of that's related to having a four-year university in our community, Southwest State University. So it's a great place to raise families. It's a safe, clean commute community as well. And so having safety and security obviously makes it a place where people want to live and raise their families. And I also think, and we see this here in Rochester, every time I visit, there's a cr construction crane somewhere. But it's really investing in your community, infrastructure, buildings, streets, roads, transit. We see a lot of that in Rochester, but um Marshall does a fair job of doing that as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Mike, how about for Hopkins? What are the ingredients? Kind of what Sharon said. I mean, I'm gonna continue to talk about the people because if you need the people that are positive and are they're cheerleaders for your community. But we worked really hard at our main street to get restaurants, public open space. We have a downtown park. We've got a great music vibe going on where we've got five or six establishments now that play music on the weekend. We're walkable, we're bikeable. We you can bike in our community, you can bike, you can hit five different trails. So just you need good infrastructure, good public services, and a combination of good private investment with your restaurants. Allison and Rochester.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Won't surprise you that another uh city professional is gonna say all of the things that Sharon and Mike said. Um, but I also think thriving communities give people both opportunity and belonging. And so I think all of those, the fabric that was talked about is really important, whether that's a smaller community or a city like Rochester. But I also think the strongest cities are also comfortable evolving without losing their identity. So I think both Sharon and Mike talked about, you know, continuing to invest and evolve and even in other people coming forward with their own business opportunities. I think most cities, um, the things that a community really wants are also the things that visitors want. And so people want to be a visitor in their own city and be proud of that when people come see them. And they also want to be authentic. So I think people want to feel welcome and like they belong in their community and also like other people feel welcome there.

Music As A Community Connector

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Mike, you mentioned a growing music scene in Hopkins, and I obviously see that in Rochester. I've been here over eight years. I see that all over, it seems like Minnesota, especially in the summer. Can in any one of you talk about the music scene and how it's grown over the years?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Well, for us, we have the Arts Center, which has concerts, seven to eight concerts a year. They also run our downtown park where we do summer concerts on Thursday night. We don't just have one brew pub. We have two brew pubs, and they have music on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then we have a couple other restaurants, and it just they kind of play off each other and they have block parties outside, and it just the music has is kind of a way to bring a connection to people. So we've we've realized that we've got this great music vibe. We've also got a couple businesses where you can get karaoke lessons, you can buy instruments from a place, there's a vinyl record store. So it's it's becoming an art kind of a music venue too, besides the newer restaurants that we're getting in our city.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

I'll just add to that for Marshall. Uh, about three years ago, we reconstructed uh Third Street, which is in downtown Marshall, and each Thursday in the summers, we have uh what's called Eats and Beats. So we bring in musical uh entertainment, and we get a really good mix of people at those, bring food trucks in and so forth. And it's just a really good vibe and uh brings the community together.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

And Allison Rochester has a a music department.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Yeah, we're pretty unique in that way. So we have a public music department in Rochester. It's existed for a really long time, since like the early 1900s, 1920s. Maybe that's because of the Mayo Brothers. We don't really know. But I would say what's one thing that's been interesting to see since COVID is we have a Riverside Concert Series where it's free concerts in our downtown park right next to the Civic Center that public music puts on with some bigger names. But then we also have a forward concert series. So we're a ward-based system, and um we have uh six concerts in the summer in city parks within people's neighborhoods with more sort of that MPR vibe Minnesota music. And those have really taken off. We have a lot of people going to those. I think our most recent had over 1,200 people attend in a city park. Now we also had a Minnesota native, Corey Kennedy. So um that was probably the draw. Uh, but yeah, I think people just really are enjoying getting together. And what Mike said, it's it's kind of like the great bridger of divides. People are there to enjoy the same music, and maybe they would actually talk to somebody they never would before.

Investments That Build Local Pride

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Every city makes choices about where to invest its time, energy, and resources. What's one project, place, or investment in your community that has had meaningful impact on quality of life and community pride? Mike and Hopkins?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I gotta go back to Main Street. I started there in 2011 and I sat down with the mayor and I said, what are the top priorities? And he wrote five down and all five are Main Street. So we've we've we've provided about a million dollars in facade loans for it's a historic downtown, 125-year-old building. So we kept the buildings intact. We allow street cafes, which a lot of suburbs don't. We were the first suburb to have a brew pub. Uh, and I can go on and on and on. We've we know three 12 years ago we didn't have any fine dining uh restaurants. We now have three. We also have a lot of festivals and everything's focused on our main street. We want everybody to come to our main street. We have to fight a little harder because we have YZ and Excelsior close by, but they have Lake Minnetonka. We don't have a lake. We got rooftops, asphalt 494, and then high 169. So we work really hard to get our main street. We work pretty hard to keep out you know, big box stuff just because we want our main street to work. So we think I think we've been pretty successful thanks to mayors and councils from years ago. Sharon, how about in Marshall?

SPEAKER_02 9:49

If you're coming out west, one of the first city buildings you will see is Red Baron Arena and Expo Center. It was completed construction in 2016. So we're actually celebrating 10 years. Uh it has uh two hockey rinks in the facility, but when one of the rinks and the ice comes off, we do host community events in there and other types of events, whether it be weddings or home shows and things like that. So I have to say it predated my uh time with the city of Marshall actually started discussions in 2012, and it's been very, very successful. And just to get back to hockey a little bit, anyone who's played hockey in that facility says says it's one of the best hockey facilities in the state. So it really is a wonderful facility, and um, it's something that people uh talk about in terms of community pride for Marshall.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Well, we are the state of hockey after all. Right. Allison, how about in Rochester?

SPEAKER_03 10:53

For me, it's what I hear from residents and visitors, which is our parks and trail system. We have a lot of folks that really like to get outdoors and stay healthy, and so we have a significant, I think over 187 parks across the city connected by trail system. And that really connects our neighborhoods together between each other, but we also get people out into the community and getting healthy, those kinds of things. I would say the other thing that we've invested in that's maybe not physical structure is community engagement. And I'm really grateful to the city council and the mayor. We have a new uh passport program that people can get a sticker from if they get all, I think you only you don't have to get all of the council members and the mayor. You have to get six out of eight. Um, then you can turn your passport in. And so it's just an easy way for people to engage with their elected officials because a lot of times people don't engage with the city in that way. They're not watching our council meetings like they're listening to this podcast. But I do think it's a great way for the community to feel connected regardless of what different amenities they might have access to.

Growth Without Losing Your Soul

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I have some specific questions for each of you for your communities. Allison in Rochester, you've experienced tremendous growth and transformation over the past decade through public-private partnerships and major investments in downtown and community amenities. As Rochester continues to grow, how do you balance embracing new opportunities while preserving the sense of community that residents value?

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Yeah, I think a key there is sometimes we experience it and sometimes growth happens to us. And so we have a lot of cranes up. Um, and that not everyone always loves that. We have a little bit of construction fatigue happening, but it is really exciting to work in a community and live in a community where there's a lot happening. And I think it's important to start first recognizing that growth isn't the goal by itself. Um, the goal is to use growth to create a better community for today, for tomorrow, for everyone who's living here and those who might be interested in living here, visiting here. So we do have an extraordinary period of investment happening, a lot of private investment, but almost a billion dollars of public investment also happening over the next five years. So we don't want Rochester to become a collection of impressive projects that you move between. We want it to be a real community where people encounter one another, build relationships, and feel connected to the city and their story in the city. And I think our best public-private partnerships aren't just transactional. They really begin with shared vision. And I think we've gotten better and better at that, um, despite the fact that one of our major partners has a very clear vision for itself. How does that also help the community to move forward and thrive? And so I think the challenge is not choosing between becoming a global destination and preserving our community character. It's ensuring Rochester's global growth strengthens what is local.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Mike, Hopkins has earned a reputation for having a vibrant downtown and strong sense of place, despite being surrounded by larger metropolitan neighbors. How has Hopkins maintained its unique identity while continuing to evolve and grow?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Well, we work hard. I'll start with that. And we never really wanted to be Edina, St. Louis Park, Minitonka, Ead Prairie. Those are the four suburbs that are over 70,000 that surround us that all have malls or bigger shopping entities. We just kind of we just kind of went about our business and said we're gonna be the best small town in the metropolitan area. We are very flexible. We don't look to say no to developers. We've we find ways to say yes. I mean, we we have a painting store that comes in where you can paint portraits that has uh you can have a glass of wine. We have a bookstore that serves wine. We we bend our liquor rules with liquor control obviously giving us permission, but we don't we don't care that it's you're not gonna serve food. If you're gonna bring people in town, we want to we want to try to work with you. We also have a lot of festivals. We have Raspberry Festival, we have a block, we have a food truck festival, uh LTD has a block party, there's a ribfest, Hopkins Royal Bash Festival. The goal of those is we want people from other cities to come in under to see what our city has to offer, and then all of a sudden they see a restaurant like, well, I'm coming back. So we're doing whatever we can. I mean, we work hard to get what we've got, and I'm very proud of what we've done with our entire team in Hopkins.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

You have Paige Becker's Day?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

We did. So we renamed our city Page Becker's Day. Even though I shouldn't say this out loud, she lived in St. Louis Park, but we don't care. We just took it up when she was the first round draft choice, and we got so much national attention for that. And nobody ever questioned it. A couple of St. Louis Park residents were upset about it, but we're not.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

They might now.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah. Yeah, good point. Well, he's gonna cut this out. No editing.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

I've just changed my mind. Sharon, Marshall serves as an important regional hub for Southwest Minnesota, supporting residents from throughout the region through employment, education, health care, and recreation. What strengths do regional centers like Marshall bring to Minnesota's future? And how do those strengths help attract people and investment?

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Well, Marshall is a rural area and we're surrounded by agriculture. And Marshall thrives off of that economy as well. We are a food production town, meaning that uh we have several large businesses that produce food for not only the state, of course, but the world. And so when you look at Minnesota's beginnings, it is agriculture, and you look at their future, it is agriculture. And so I think for Marshall, it has meant attracting people in terms of jobs, and it also has meant uh bringing in diversity. We uh have uh a pretty large Corinne population, and that's related to uh one of our ag production companies that we have in Marshall. And it also has meant investment. ADM, uh, which is a corn processing facility, has done a number of investments, and again, it really contributes to Minnesota's future because agriculture is where it's

Lessons Borrowed From Other Cities

SPEAKER_02 16:43

at.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

One of the reasons city leaders gather at the League of Minnesota Cities conference is to exchange ideas. What's one lesson, innovation, or approach you've seen from another community that has influenced your thinking as a city leader, Allison?

SPEAKER_03 16:57

It's it's great to get together at the League of Minnesota Cities, and I think we learn from each other, sometimes we steal from each other all the time. And I would say um something that's fascinating to me is I used to work for the city of Mankato, and um when I was there, I worked uh for a person who was contemporaries with my predecessor in the city of Rochester. And I think if you are ever in Mankato at their civic center, you'll see it's across the street from their government center. Our civic center is across the street from the government center. Our government center, similar to Man Cato, has two different governments in it. So I think partnership is probably what I took away um the most from uh Man Cato and that you can do so much more if you partner.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Mike? For me, uh I'm gonna go way off the board. There's two lessons that hit me hard 20 years, 20 some years ago and 10 years ago. There's a there's a speaker that talked about for the love of cities, and he said in order to succeed as a city, you gotta be worried about cave people, which is citizens against virtual everything, because they will they will derail your city. And you've got to get the silent majority out there to speak about all the positives of whatever it might be, an infrastructure project, a business, a park project. And the other speaker was Chad Weinstein, who's a consultant from the Twin Cities, who talked about cities, and his first line was when you see one city, you see one city. And that helped us by say when when people would come to us say, Why can't we be like 50th in France? Or why can't we have Ridgedale Mall? Well, because we're Hopkins and we're unique that way. So let's let's let's enjoy our uniqueness and and and challenge and and and and surprise that and celebrate it. Sharon, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

I have to say I'm impressed with Rochester and I have been for a very long time. So it's great to be here for the league because you do get to see it behind the scenes really and uh take some of the tours. And so that is, you know, for me just kind of inspirational. And uh even though we're a small city, we can take some things from Rochester. And I want to talk about Hopkins too. You know, my dad was a favorite tractor as Minneapolis Moline. So your downtown development, you know, kind of has a a sensitive side to me in terms of what you did there. So just really, really impressed with Rochester and Hopkins. I'm gonna give a shout out to a really small community in southwest Minnesota because they've done a lot of things with their downtown. They've done streetscaping, they have a brewery on their on their main street. And you may have heard they recently uh installed a 63-foot nutcracker, and it is the world's largest nutcracker. And you're probably wondering, what does Laverne have to do with nutcrackers? There is a resident who has one of the largest nutcracker collections, probably in the world. And so they're just kind of honing in on that. And uh I think it will be a tourism draw off of I-90. And for anybody that's going to the Black Hills, which there's a lot of them this time of year, I've been really impressed with what they've done. Small, small community, nice branding, devoted to downtown and Main Street, and then doing some unique things to bring uh people to their community.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

I will say Laverne presented that case study at the Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference this year, and we were all blown away. Yeah, they've been very

The Next Decade Of Opportunity

SPEAKER_01 20:09

impressed. As you think about the next decade, what's the biggest opportunity for Minnesota cities to create places where people want to live and visit? Mike?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

I think I'm probably gonna answer this differently, but maybe not. I always go back that the best way cities can expand is to have what I call the three-legged stool. You need to have a mayor and council that gets it, has a vision, flies at 10,000 feet, doesn't get in the weeds. You got to have a staff that gets along well with the council and implements it, and then you got to have your community, which is your residence. I've worked in five cities and I've had most of my cities that were all aligned, and when you're aligned, it's amazing what a city can do to take on whatever the next 10 years will bring us, because we don't really know. We didn't know COVID was coming, and we all adjusted to that. So it's just a matter of you gotta it's it we're a team sport, and when you're playing well as a team, maybe we won't win a Super Bowl like the Vikings, but at least we're gonna get to the playoffs. I had to get that one in.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Sure, bring us down. Sharon?

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah, I when I think about the biggest opportunities for Minnesota cities, I'm gonna be a little bit more broad and not so city focused on on the on structures maybe, but I see a lot of investment by succeeding cities in parks and recreation. And I really think it's because Minnesotans want to be outside and enjoy the uh natural environment. So I look forward to in terms of the cities and how they relate to the state of Minnesota, is that we have a lot of great opportunities to enjoy recreation and be outdoors. And Minnesota gets a hard time for being a cold state and rough winters, but we're seeing it moderate. And I think there's great opportunities for the state because winters aren't as harsh as they used to be. So lots of potential growth and bringing people back home to the state of Minnesota.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Yeah, I think I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning. And it's, I think the people that live here, I'm not from Minnesota originally, but I think over the last um year or two, we've really seen the best of people in Minnesota. And I think embracing that and telling our story and continuing to be the best of ourselves and connecting with each other, whether that's, you know, city manager to city manager, council to council, or just telling our story that this is a place where people can live, where you can be connected, be successful, have wonderful quality of life. You don't just go to work, you actually get to know your neighbors and be supported by your community, which isn't just the city, it's all the people that live there. I think that's a great story to tell. And I think we have an opportunity to come together and make sure that in our each of our unique ways as a unique city, um, that we have a lot of different places here that people could live and thrive and we're a place to be.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And way back when there was a time article, Minnesota's no longer fly over country. And that certainly is the

Lightning Round Travel Recommendations

SPEAKER_01 22:56

case today. We have time for a quick lightning round. So I have a few questions here. I'll just go down and start with you, Allison. What's one thing every first-time visitor should experience in your community?

SPEAKER_03 23:08

I would say anybody that's in the community should start with a walk downtown, pop in anywhere and get a bite to eat in one of our local restaurants. And you're gonna get a different sense of the place if you experience a quick walk through our mega, you know, what we consider a mega downtown uh with the Mayo Clinic and all of that, but then also stop in where all of our locals are eating.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Mike and Hopkins. We have the world's largest raspberry, a thousand pounds, 22 feet. It's right by a brew pub, so you can have a beer and look at the take a picture with the world's largest raspberry, and it's the beginning of our main street. So you can just start there and go from there. Sharon, Marshall?

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Yeah, I think every first-time visitor in Marshall should bike the Camden Regional Trail. Takes you from Marshall down to Camden State Park, which is one of the nicest state parks in Minnesota. People may not know that, but it's really great. And the beauty of this trail is it's sort of uphill on the way out, and on the way back, it's downhill. So easy, easy bike.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Sharon, what's one event or tradition that best reflects your community spirit?

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah, every summer our community festival is sounds of summer, actually, and uh lots of bands, lots of people, again, food trucks, and just a really good community get together.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Mike? Let's start 92nd year of Raspberry Festival, July 16th, 17th, and 18th. It's a great festival that brings in about 25,000 people for the band. It's really fun. It's great. So same thing as you, music and food and what what else can you ask for? So Allison?

SPEAKER_03 24:37

This won't be a surprise, but Thursdays downtown and a close second. Although if you come here on a Wednesday and leave on a Monday morning, you can do forward concert, hit Thursdays downtown for great food and global affair, and then on Sunday you can hit a Riverside concert series.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

A lot of tunes. What's one word you're hopeful will describe your community 10 years from now, Mike?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Well, currently we're described as fun, hip, and cool, and I'm not good at math, so I'm gonna go with the same words. I hope we're still fun, hip and cool 10 years from now. Allison?

SPEAKER_02 25:09

I'll say connected. Mike had three words, so I'm gonna keep it to one. Not picking on your mic. No, you can. Can I? No. I'll I'll say possibilities.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Before we wrap, I just want to also give a call out to Sharon on her 2026 recipient of the Dr. Robert A. Barrett Award for Management Excellence, which is the top honor presented by the Minnesota City County Management Association. Congratulations. That was just this past May.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Thank you so much. I was very, very surprised, but it's awesome to be recognized by your peers. And yeah, just great support network from my uh city administrators and managers in the state. So it's

Final Takeaways And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_02 25:55

awesome.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Allison Zelms from Rochester, Mike Morenson from Hopkins, and Sharon Hansen from Marshall. Thank you for sharing your perspectives and insights on the Growing Destinations podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. And thank you to the League of Minnesota Cities for bringing leaders together to learn from one another and strengthen communities across our state. Thanks for listening to Growing Destinations, brought to you by Experience Rochester. If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it. And if you're planning your next getaway, weekend trip or conference destination, discover everything happening in Rochester, Minnesota. Because this isn't the Rochester you think you know. This is Rochester, really. Learn more at Experiencer Mn.com.