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How businesses can prepare for Central Corridor construction

The Metropolitan Council recognizes that construction of the line will have disruptive impacts on businesses along the corridor and will do everything possible to minimize those impacts.

To ensure that the businesses, property owners and residents are informed and engaged throughout the process, the Metropolitan Council hired a multilingual team of community outreach coordinators. The outreach coordinators will be businesses’ primary contact to the Central Corridor Project Office through the remainder of the engineering process and more importantly, the go-to people during construction.

Central Corridor outreach staff contact information.

Steps to mitigate construction impacts

The Metropolitan Council is taking several steps to mitigate the impacts of construction on businesses and residents:

• The outreach and construction staff will work with individual businesses to maintain access, including temporary driveways and walkways.
• The construction contractors will be required to include signage to direct pedestrians and vehicle traffic through the construction area.
• The outreach staff will keep the public informed about the project and upcoming construction activities in a variety of ways including weekly construction updates, public meetings, one-on-one meetings with businesses, 72-hour notice of utility shutoffs, and 72-hour notice of lane or road closures.
• The project office will provide communication tools people can use to submit construction-related concerns, including a 24-hour hotline and online comment form.

See the Central Corridor construction communication plan.

See photos illustrating strategies for maintaining pedestrian and vehicle access during construction.

Groups with business expertise to assist businesses

The Metropolitan Council is also working closely with several groups that have business expertise to assist businesses in other ways:

• The City of St. Paul has developed a parking program to mitigate the loss of on-street parking.  See the City of St. Paul’s Parking Management Program.
• The Central Corridor Partnership, an alliance of St. Paul and Midway area business leaders, will be providing assistance to help businesses with marketing strategies and business planning to survive the construction process and let their customers know they are still open. The partnership is developing a business management plan and seeking funding sources. Contact Karri Plowman, director of the Central Corridor Partnership, at karri@saintpaulchamber.com or 651-265-2782.
• The University Avenue Business Preparation Collaborative will provide one-on-one technical support to small businesses along University Avenue. They have hired business retention advisers Sia Lo and Marilyn Porter to help small businesses prepare financially for construction. Lo is reachable at sia@greaterfrogtowncdc.org and 651-789-7486, and Porter is reachable at marilyn@aurorastanthony.org and 651-230-1020.
• The Central Corridor Funders Collaborative and Learning Network seeks to maximize the benefit of the LRT investment for the people and places adjacent to the line by forming multi-sector partnerships focusing on affordable housing, business mitigation and land acquisition for transit-oriented development. See the Central Corridor Funders website.