St. Cloud Mayor Prioritizing Downtown Housing Development

(KNSI) – St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis appeared with Dan ‘The Ox’ Ochsner on KNSI Tuesday afternoon, talking about economic priorities for next year.

An area of emphasis is the downtown corridor, which has been struck by a drop in foot traffic. With many employees working remotely, offices aren’t as full and that has had an impact on businesses that cater to those workers. Kleis says one way to offset that is to encourage housing.

“I’ve actually talked to a couple of other experts that have come in and looked at our downtown and they said one way you turn that around is you need housing. Period. The way things have changed, you’re not going to get — you know, Capital One’s not gonna bring all their people back. They’re going to be working remotely. They still have as many employees, but you aren’t going to get a grocery store, you aren’t going to get all those things unless you have people.”

He says there is room for development quickly.

“One of the things that all of the experts that have looked at it said [is] you’ve got way too much surface parking downtown. Those are city lots. We can do economic development and housing. We’re told by those experts what it ends up being — first, it’s subsidized then it’s rentals then it’s condos. People aren’t going to buy anything until you already see a bunch of people there.”

Kleis says the process will take years. There are currently around 300 permanent residents downtown. The city’s goal is to increase that to 1,000 by 2028.

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