St. Paul launches $800,000 USDOT‑funded scan of city and HRA land to identify transit‑oriented redevelopment opportunities

St. Paul Policy Committee members heard an overview of a transit‑oriented development (TOD) asset scan funded by an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Bruce Engelbrecht of the Office of Financial Services told the committee the grant supports a consultant‑led inventory and prioritization of city‑ and HRA‑owned sites for housing and commercial redevelopment. "The city's transit oriented development, asset scan project... which is funded through an $800,000 grant from the US department of transportation," Engelbrecht said.

Consultant Erin Lanoff of HR&A Advisors described the program goals and process, framing the work as an inventory of roughly 800 sites across the city followed by prioritization. "We kicked off our work in June... where we're headed is to start to narrow those 800 sites into potentially 10 priority sites and then ultimately 3 sites that will go into that sort of concept design feasibility analysis," Lanoff said. She said the USDOT IFAC grant requires that the most detailed planning and feasibility work focus on transit‑oriented sites, but that the study will catalog the full universe of publicly owned land and identify non‑TOD opportunities for future consideration.

The presentation highlighted constraints and nuance in the inventory: most parcels are small (the plurality are under 0.125 acre), only 107 sites exceed five acres and 92 of those are parkland, so large contiguous redevelopment parcels are limited. Lanoff urged the committee to weigh competing goals — fiscal return, equitable growth and positioning the city as a development partner — when choosing priority sites. The consultant said next steps include targeted stakeholder engagement, internal workshops to 'scrub' non‑opportunities (for example, parking garages and active public facilities), and a timeline to produce a 10‑site shortlist followed by three TOD sites for concept feasibility work.