Frogtown Focus Area

Hey Frogtowners! Long time no talk, eh? Here’s an update on the Frogtown Neighborhood Association’s newest project!

We brought up this summer in our first blog post how the bank treatment of Frogtown homes has led to high vacancy rates. We observed that the area between University and Thomas, from Dale to Western, is currently experiencing the highest vacancy rate in Frogtown. As a result, we’ve chosen this area as our Frogtown Focus area, a pilot project for small area development. 

To begin this project, the Frogtown Neighborhood Association, Springboard for the Arts, and Habitat for Humanity came together to invite organizations working in Frogtown and residents living in the focus area to get together to begin talking about what development in this area could look like. We began with each attendee posting two things they see as assets to the neighborhood a map of the focus area; the assets were quite diverse, and varied from the Frogtown Farm site, to senior housing facilities, to re-developable vacant lots.

With our asset map in place, we began visioning what we’d like to see in the neighborhood five years from now by answering the question “In five years, what will a thriving community, in this neighborhood, look and feel like?” Out of these ideas came ten categories: Free health care; stable, affordable, occupied homes; art & beauty; community pride; green space; people stay and people choose to move here; safe community; safe transit options; economic and employment; and cultural and historic district. These categories laid the groundwork for the discussion following the visioning. For these discussions, the group split into organizations and residents, talking about what they can do and what they’d like to see. 

This meeting was just the first of many to come – if you’re a resident living in our focus area, you can look forward to seeing us knocking on your door and soliciting your involvement. Until then, if you’re interested in getting involved, you can contact Sam at Sam@frogtownmn.org. If you'd like any maps or data about our focus area, please email Maggie@frogtownmn.org.