St. Paul’s Frogtown hopes Capitol Commons can reverse decline

Rice Street runs just steps from the State Capitol Building. But the surrounding neighborhood, known as Frogtown, has felt overlooked for years. The contrast is hard to miss: Only blocks away, lawmakers decide how to spend money for the entire state. Yet little of that investment seems to reach this community.

The newly opened Capitol Commons, located at 546 Rice Street, is part of a plan to bring new life to the area and begin changing that pattern. The project is a partnership between the Sheriff’s Department and the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB), and is one piece of a broader effort focused on Rice Street.

“[The legislature] has a lot of great statewide initiatives here, like the Capitol, but they don’t necessarily have their attention right here,” Peter Musty, principal planner and zoning administrator of the CAAPB, explained at an open house on February 10. “This is the first time in a while that we’ve had focused community outreach here. … Hopefully this is going to bring the community together, but at the same time it’s a safety initiative, a liveability initiative, [and] it’s a design initiative.”

The space is a collaboration with CAAPB, but its day-to-day operations will be primarily managed by the Sheriff’s Department. Seven deputies and Community Service Officers (CSOs) will work full-time on site. Johnny Howard, a CSO who has lived in the area for 45 years, is excited about the project.

“I love this neighborhood,” Howard said. “The plan is to reengage the sheriff’s department with the neighborhood and try to identify and celebrate all the communities in the neighborhood.”

Howard has supported the area for years, co-founding the Thomas-Dale Block Club. He wants young people, especially young people of color, to see officers as a resource. “[We need to] recruit officers from Frogtown. We need good folks involved in law enforcement.”

The sheriff’s office received increased funding in July 2025 and has expanded its presence in the area. Rather than focusing on arrests, Deputy Marco Barton says his goal is to act as a “deterrent through presence.” 

Since officers have been more visible on the streets, staff at a nearby community center have noticed fewer incidents of youth being harassed by drug dealers and muggers. Local businesses and commuters, he said, are hopeful about what the space could mean for the neighborhood.

Capitol Commons will offer walk-in hours for kids, and Barton hopes to see programming that engages people of all ages and cultures.

The building has already gathered a collection of chess sets. Howard believes teaching kids chess can help them develop critical thinking and life-planning skills.

Deputy John Gleason is looking ahead to summer, when he plans to build a community garden for youth and seniors.

Many resources, including financial literacy classes and small business grants, were already available in the area, but connecting residents to them has been a challenge. Planners believe having a ground-level space that brings those services together will make them easier to access.

Community member Jenny Welch is hopeful about the new space. “I think we’re being naive if we think that our area is thriving right now and that it doesn’t need [help],” she said. “So we need to put all our support behind any organizations that are willing to do that.”

In the last century Rice Street was a busy streetcar hub and a center of commerce, filled with foot traffic. While the area has been declining for decades, the past 10 years have been especially difficult.

“There was a pandemic, unrest, disinvestment, commuters leaving … ICE, it just keeps coming,” Musty said. “The shopfront owners, the businesses, are the front line of having to survive all this.”

“We want the community to feel safer,” he continued. “We can’t build trust, that takes years. So [we’re] building a little bit of safety and then trust will come. But we’ve got to plant the seeds and hope it grows.”

If the project succeeds, Gleason envisions “a place where people are comfortable and safe. Someone [being able to say] ‘Oh man, I got nothing going on. I’m gonna go talk to them today.’ And it being a welcoming environment, a space people know they can trust and feel safe, I think that would be a big win. And I hope that it continues past what we’re doing. Because I think every community needs a space like this.”

For more information, visit www.mn.gov/caapb/about-us/.

Anya Armentrout is a freelance journalist, a student at Macalester College, and a contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.