Urban renewal, Minneapolis bakery give rise to recognition

Lucy Y. Her, Star Tribune

Published October 29, 2003

Over breakfast one morning in 1999, Sharon Sayles Belton, the mayor of Minneapolis at the time, asked community developer Theresa Carr to help clean up the northwest corner of 11th Av. S. and E. Franklin Av. in the Phillips neighborhood.

"When the mayor asks you to help, you help," she said.

So began the steps to closing down a high-crime area.

Carr, executive director of the American Indian Neighborhood Development Corporation, had just started a partnership with community groups and the Police Department to help revitalize Phillips. The corporation, which already owned seven blocks along Franklin, bought out the office space, the medical clinic and the gas station on the northwest corner. On Tuesday, as the Franklin Street Bakery held an open house to show off its new building on that corner, the corporation was being honored by the MetLife Foundation for its work in the neighborhood.

The organization was one of two in the nation to receive the foundation's Community-Police Partnership award.

It recognizes partnerships between the community and police that help reduce crime, spur housing development and improve economic growth and community services in low-to moderate-income areas.

The award comes with a $30,000 stipend, which Carr said will go toward the Franklin Avenue Safety Center.

"It's tremendously gratifying," she said. "I think that we have been able to avoid a lot of the pain that north Minneapolis is going through because of the safety center and our deep relations with individual members of the Police Department."

Improving conditions

The American Indian Neighborhood Development Corporation was created in 1975 by a group of Indian women who wanted to improve the Phillips neighborhood. They developed commercial real estate to attract businesses that would bring services and jobs to one of the largest and most diverse of the city's 81 neighborhoods. The corporation's leaders said they wanted to improve conditions for the Indians who live there.

Angela Kappenman, 41, a resident who was born and raised there, said she's seen the change.

Kappenman, who toured the bakery Tuesday morning, said, "It will help increase employment and give us a place to buy baked goods." Before the bakery moved in, the corner was "an extremely violent place," according to residents and developers. Across the street was a notorious bar, Kappenman said.

With the gas station gone, the improvement at the corner "was felt throughout the whole neighborhood," she said. "People feel pride now." Moving the Franklin Street Bakery just a few blocks east helped keep 65 jobs in Minneapolis. Most of the workers live in Phillips, according to bakery owners Mark Haugen and Wayne Kostroski. They anticipate creating another 35 to 40 jobs in the next three years.

City Council Member Dean Zimmermann, whose Sixth Ward includes the Phillips neighborhood, said he advocates creating jobs in neighborhoods, meaning that people can walk or bike to work. And it helps build neighborhood morale because residents can watch businesses grow.

Bigger, better
The bakery formerly was housed in a 7,000-square-foot building on Franklin just west of Interstate Hwy. 35W. The idea for moving the it to 11th and Franklin was born about three years ago when Haugen and Kostroski were looking to expand.

It was then that Kostroski met Carr, who persuaded him to put a 20,000-square-foot bakery on the corner.

It's "unbelievable," Haugen said. "We've got people walking up every day, constantly wondering when the retail store will open."

The wholesale store opened two weeks ago. The retail store -- which will sell bread, pastries and sandwiches -- will open in mid-November. Haugen said the bakery is proud to be a part of an up-and-coming neighborhood: "We want to be the place for people to come to."

Through its 5-foot-tall windows, customers and residents can watch the bakers. "We tend to hide our workplaces behind brick walls, but now we've opened our productions to the neighborhood," he said.

Elias Simbana, 37, the bakery's production manager, said the new shop gives workers more space. "My people feel proud of the new bakery," he said.

German Gonzalez, a Phillips resident, said he'll shop at the bakery. "I think this is what the neighborhood needed," he said. "I want to help people bring more businesses here and make the neighborhood safer. In the last couple of years there's been a lot of change. It was really bad. Now it looks really beautiful."

Lucy Y. Her is at lher@startribune.com.

Sales & Customer Service: paul@franklinstreetbakery.com