With little fanfare, the St. Paul City Council capped three years of discussions and focus groups aimed at making the Mississippi riverfront in St. Paul “more natural, more urban and more connected.”
The Great River Passage Master Plan, a 300-page vision of how the riverfront should develop over the next 30 to 50 years, passed the council unanimously on Wednesday, April 10. The plan will be presented to the Metropolitan Council, the metro’s regional planning body, for final review and adoption.
The plan, assembled by the St. Paul Parks and Recreation Department with the help of a 55-member advisory board, calls for a pedestrian-friendly river promenade extending from the Science Museum of Minnesota east along the bluff to the Union Depot, as well as a learning center at the Watergate Marina on Crosby Farm Road, among other amenities.
Some critics have expressed concern that the plan will be too costly to implement or move resources from other city priorities.
St. Paul City Council President Kathy Lantry noted that a public hearing on the master plan drew about a dozen speakers last week, most of them upbeat about the process.
“To get to this point, the amount of hours and the work that went in by parks staff really is incredible,” she said.
Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.
