By Cole Hanson
As a registered dietician, public health educator and City Council candidate, I have spent the last few months knocking on thousands of doors, and one idea consistently lights up people’s faces: A municipal grocery store in downtown St. Paul.
It’s not just a good idea. It’s a necessary one.
Downtown St. Paul is home to thousands of residents, many of them elders, immigrants and low-income renters.
It’s also where thousands of state employees, from the State Capitol to the Judicial Center, have returned to work to spend their days serving Minnesotans alongside county and city workers.
Whether you live or work downtown, one thing is clear: There is nowhere to buy basic groceries. Not a single full-service option exists for blocks in any direction.
As state workers return to their offices, and as we try to reimagine downtown for a post-pandemic world, we need to make a place where people can actually live and thrive, not just clock in and go home.
That starts with the basics: food access. A municipal grocery store would fill this gap. It could offer stable pricing, fresh produce and culturally relevant options.
It could serve downtown residents and returning workers, while partnering with local farms, co-ops and food shelves to build a local supply chain along with benefitting from the traditional strengths of a large grocery.
It doesn’t need to run as a charity; it would run as municipal liquor stores have for decades, being revenue neutral or a boon to the city budget.
And it could model the kind of city we say we want — one that puts basic needs first.
We’ve built stadiums and parking ramps with public money. We have given away TIF dollars left and right to entice development.
In this moment, we should build a grocery store that feeds our neighbors and pays its own bills too. We can do the right thing and be fiscally responsible at the same time.
We’ve already seen models that work. Cities like Chicago, New York and Milwaukee are running or exploring municipal grocery stores. And right here at home, programs like Nutritious U at the University of Minnesota show what’s possible when we lead with the public good.
The city of St. Paul should step in where the private market will not, not to compete but to complete the work of building a city that works for everyone.
When a bag of groceries is out of reach, we aren’t just failing people, we’re leaving our city and our downtown half-finished.
A thriving city feeds its people. Let’s make St. Paul a place that does just that.
Cole Hanson lives in St. Paul and is a candidate for the St. Paul City Council’s Ward 4 seat.