The new Franklin Street Bakery is another sign that reducing crime in a neighborhood is good for business.

By Todd Messelt/Special to Finance and Commerce
October 31, 2003

By the mid-1990s, Franklin Avenue and 11th Avenue South had become the epicenter of crime in Minneapolis. Drugs and prostitution were common in the neighborhood, but police also responded to frequent reports of murder, rape, assault and burglary.

Not exactly the place one would expect Wayne Kostroski, the president of Cuisine Concepts, to build his $5 million, 20,000-square-foot Franklin Street Bakery, a facility that will soon employ 80 people and produce 900,000 loaves of bread a week for clients like Sysco, Rainbow Foods and Northwest Airlines.

“Of course, the neighborhood’s history was a concern for us, especially in terms of the safety of our customers and employees,” said Kostroski. “At first blush, I had the same reaction most people who haven’t been to the neighborhood lately will have.”

The stretch of East Franklin where Kostroski’s bakery began operations in mid-October has undergone a drastic transformation since the days of “Murderapolis” — the unflattering moniker that was given Minneapolis after the The New York Times reported in 1995 that the city’s homicide rate was worse than in New York City.

These days, a flurry of recent, current and pending commercial redevelopment — all orchestrated by the nonprofit American Indian Neighborhood Development Corp. (AINDC) — has permanently altered the face of the area known as Ventura Village, part of the greater Phillips neighborhood. The redevelopment projects, along with housing improvements and community policing initiatives, have helped push the crime rate down, and that’s proving good for business.

Starting when the Minneapolis Police Department began tracking neighborhood trends in 1998, the rate of “level-1” crimes like homicide, rape, assault and armed robbery had fallen by roughly 20 percent by 2002. In Ventura Village, the level-1 rate fell more than 7 percent from 2002 and 2003. Additionally, “nuisance” crimes like drug dealing and prostitution have taken a nosedive.

As a result, local businesses are thriving. For example, a café that recently opened on the 1100 block of East Franklin has undergone two large expansions to keep up with customer demand.

“With the personality and emerging character of the neighborhood, I have no concerns about safety,” Kostroski said. “The neighborhood is in a transition period. We’re counting on our belief that it will continue to improve, and we’re counting on our role in shaping its future.”

The idea of redeveloping the site — once home to a convenience store that ranked in the police department’s top five 911 dispatch locations by volume — was first suggested to Kostroski by Theresa Carr, executive director of the AINDC.

Since taking the helm of the development group in 1996, Carr has been credited with helping transform the neighborhood into a more livable, pedestrian-friendly community. On Tuesday, Carr joined city and county officials at the Franklin Street Bakery to celebrate its arrival in the neighborhood, identifying it as the crown jewel in Ventura Village’s rebirth.

The AINDC heralded the opening of the bakery as evidence of the success of Franklin Avenue Community Safety Center, a police crime-fighting outpost that was established in collaboration with the AINDC, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, and business and community organizations. The center opened in the 1200 block of East Franklin last year.

“It’s really police work like we’ve never done before,” said MPD Phillips Commander Lt. Kris Arneson.

In addition to serving as a police department substation, Arneson said, the center is a venue for neighborhood events and community-police dialogues. “It’s the kind of coming together of the community that makes crime reduction happen,” she said.

So how did Minneapolis turn its public relations disaster into a model urban renewal project? MDP Deputy Chief Sharon Lubinski gives much of the credit to the AINDC. "It takes good police work, but it also takes developers likes the AINDC who are willing to step up and take the lead," Lubinski said.

"In the areas that are growing businesses, the good businesses are pushing out the drug trade. It's not entirely gone, but it's vastly improved over a few years ago," she added.

According to Carr, the AINDC’s redevelopment efforts began to take shape in the late 1990s. After weeding out problem businesses, including some that were fronts for illegal activity, a neighborhood master plan was developed, utilizing “crime prevention through environmental design” techniques. “The idea was to impact human behavior by how we designed the neighborhood,” she said.

The first major project came in 1998 when the AINDC renovated a warehouse at East Franklin and 11th Avenue and opened The Ancient Trader’s Market, a 19-unit retail and office complex it now leases to near-full capacity.

In 2000, the AINDC-led Franklin Avenue Streetscape Redevelopment narrowed much of East Franklin from four to three lanes, adding sidewalks, lighting, benches and landscaping.

In 2002, a 52,000-square-foot strip mall was fully renovated, and adjoining public areas were completely redesigned. Parking areas were revamped and a pedestrian-friendly walkway system was created. A new outdoor courtyard that included landscaping, decorative lighting and benches was also added.

Today, a two-story, half-block-long building at the southwest corner of Franklin and 11th is undergoing a full renovation to become the corporate headquarters for the Project for Pride in Living, a local nonprofit housing developer.

On the western edge of Ventura Village, the nonprofit Hope Community Project is developing all four corners of Franklin and Portland Avenues. At the other end of Ventura Village, the new Franklin Street Light Rail Station awaits passengers, who should begin boarding trains in 2004.

By decade’s end, most of East Franklin from Portland Avenue to 17th Avenue will have undergone major redevelopment. And according to officer Lubinski, many of the criminals who once did business there will not necessarily resume operations elsewhere.

“Some will be in prison and others will be in treatment. What happens to the rest, I’m not sure. But I do know we have been successful in pushing crime out.” Source: Finance and Commerce