Let's talk about Uptown

One topic that has come up consistently in my conversations with people throughout this campaign is the future of Uptown. As a cornerstone of vibrancy in our district, the health of Uptown is important to me, too. I’ve lived in the district for over a decade, and as a former Board President of the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association, I know that Uptown’s success is linked to adjacent neighborhoods. As a resident of the Wedge, I shop and visit friends along Hennepin weekly. Being able to walk to a restaurant for dinner, to get last-minute groceries, to buy a birthday gift for a friend, or attend a show is what I love most about where I live.

The neighborhood is going through a difficult time of recovery post-pandemic and post-civil unrest with a two-year road reconstruction underway. It has impacted the neighborhood in many ways, including stifling the small independent businesses that make this part of our district appealing to so many.

Road construction is a challenge for communities. As a longtime member of the City’s Capital Long-Range Improvement Committee, I learned in great detail about the 6 year planning horizons that the City of Minneapolis works on, how projects are prioritized, how the budget comes together, and the massive amount of coordination needed to bring these projects to fruition. The average roadway lasts between 30 and 50 years. Hennepin Ave was last re-done 70 years ago and it shows—the potholes were deep enough that we could see the long buried trolley tracks below.

As a City-owned and managed asset, the city of Minneapolis led the normal 6 year planning process, with some added in scrutiny and outreach due to the pandemic and the importance of the road, and the City voted on a plan to move the project forward. This long overdue deferred maintenance is hitting our community hard. It is disruptive for residents, travelers, and especially for businesses. Now, we are in the hard part of the construction itself. Rep. Hornstein and Sen. Dibble have championed great short term solutions for this disruption, like an expansion of the recently passed MN Promise Act and expanding the applicability of Lake Street recovery funds to include Hennepin and Uptown.

At our DFL convention in March, I gave a speech that included ways I will advocate for Uptown. In my remarks, I shared my policy idea I would draft on day one, if elected, that would establish a statewide grant program that is incorporated directly into road reconstruction for commercial roads like Hennepin Avenue. I’ve thought about this issue a lot, and we should take lessons from the Green Line Light Rail Transit project which used state grant funding to successfully help independent businesses on University Ave survive their construction period. My proposal would bake this grant into road projects with a dedicated small percentage of each budget going towards affected small, independent and minority-owned businesses as small business grants. By building it into the road budgets this way it would be a durable solution embedded into our system and would benefit our district right now as well as other cities across the state. These small walkable establishments like the ones along Hennepin, Lake, and Lyndale are valuable to our communities, and they should not suffer because of basic infrastructure maintenance.
​
My decision to run is and always has been to do the most good for our neighborhoods, and we all want Uptown to thrive. Our state can play a role in supporting our local economy with the right vision and understanding of the challenges faced, and I promise to keep Uptown a priority as your representative. In a moment when lobbying efforts at the Capitol have outsized influence, sending a champion deeply rooted in our district is more important than ever.