Article Summary: Franklin Street Bakery’s 20,000 square foot facility, on the corner of 11th and Franklin Avenues, in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, is part of an award winning urban renewal project. The bakery formerly was located several blocks west on Franklin Avenue from its current location in a 7,000 square foot building. Theresa Carr met Franklin Street Bakery co-owner Wayne Kostroski and convinced him to build the a new bakery facility on the corner of 11th and Franklin, the former location of a gas station known for being a violent place.
Carr, the executive director of the American Indian Neighborhood Development Corporation, was partnered with community groups and the local police department to revitalize the neighborhood, a project born when then Minneapolis mayor Sharon Sayles Belton asked Carr to help clean up that corner in 1999. The American Indian Neighborhood Development Corporation owned seven blocks of Franklin Avenue and added the office space, medical clinic, and gas station on the corner to its holdings.
Mark Haugen, co-owner of Franklin Street Bakery, asserts the bakery is proud to be a part of the urban renewal. “We want to be a place for people to come to,” he says. Through the building’s tall windows, customers and residents can watch the activities of the bakery. Furthermore, keeping the bakery on Franklin Avenue allowed them to keep 65 jobs, as most of the employees live in the Philips neighborhood. Elias Simbana, Franklin Street Bakery’s production manager says, “My people feel proud of the new bakery.”
Coinciding with the opening of the new Franklin Street Bakery, the American Indian Neighborhood Development Corporation was one of two organizations nationwide to receive MetLife Foundation’s Community-Police Partnership award.
All the hard work has paid off, according to residents. “I think this is what the neighborhood needed. I want to help people bring more businesses here and make the neighborhood safer. In the last couple years there’s been a lot of change. It was really bad. Now it looks really beautiful,” says German Gonzalez, a Phillips resident.
Full text of the article by Lucy Y. Her is available from the Paid Archives section of the StarTribune.com
