The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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Editorials

August 6, 2006

Our View -- Community center can become reality

editorial board

You don’t have to go far to find a serious plan for improving livability in the Mankato region.

A group of your neighbors has been putting together an action plan that offers a roadmap to developing a multi-use community center for the Mankato area, improving the housing by making it better and more affordable and, simply enough, encouraging neighbors to meet each other in the interests of increasing diversity.

The Envision 2020 group, working together for six months, has put forth a plan to enhance the “livability” of the Mankato region. Reading their 12-page summary of strategies, action plans and timelines for livability makes you wish the area had done this 10 years ago.

While many have talked about community centers for a long time, those conversations have most times ended with a polite conversation between an arts advocate and a willing-to-listen but willing-to-do-little city council.

The Envision 2020 process should help motivate various constituencies to get a community center done.

So far, the suggestion: To create a community center that houses the seniors’ Summit Center, Blue Earth County Historical Society, possibly a performing arts center, a children’s museum, possible space for the YWCA and expansion of the YMCA, and some school programs through Mankato Area Public Schools.

Key to this plan is the potential for collaboration, for sharing of resources and bringing the power of several key community organizations into one cohesive, cooperative unit.

This kind of community center will be key to taking the Mankato region to the next level. Community centers are places to bring people together, create a critical mass of traffic for the community and spur business and development.

This kind of collaboration also bodes well for garnering grant money and is a good opportunity for public/private partnerships.

The plan also suggests such a community center use existing buildings or developed land in a renovation, reuse model. It suggests funding sources that would include state bonds, local sales taxes, hospitality taxes, foundation money and corporate sponsorship and capital campaigns.

A community center is just one element of the livability plan. Other strategies include improving community aesthetics with walking spaces and green spaces, creating and encouraging affordable housing, providing information forums that connect generations in the community so they can work together, and increasing diversity through local institutions and neighborhoods.

The Envision 2020 plan for enhancing the livability of the region is a serious, well-thought-out plan coming from neighbors. It’s time to support it.

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