skip to content
Primary navigation

District Frameworks

Following the Comprehensive Plan, district and neighborhood planning may occur. In addition to the Capitol Campus, the Capitol Area has three district/neighborhood planning areas: 

  • Capitol Rice (covered in Chapter 7A) 
  • Capitol Heights (covered in Chapter 7B) 
  • Fitzgerald Park (covered in Chapter 7C) 

While Comprehensive Planning looks at the entire Capitol Area and writes policy to guide future development decisions, district Development Frameworks outline detailed goals for stability, change and growth in a community.

district image

Capitol Rice 

The Capitol Rice Planning process was born out of a combined effort of three public sector initiatives: Ramsey County: Rice Street Transportation Safety Study; City of St. Paul: Commercial Vitality Zone; and Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board: 2040 Comprehensive Plan Update. This planning track included two successive community and stakeholder involved planning initiatives led by CAAPB staff, resulting in two plan documents:  
 
The Capitol Rice Commercial Vitality Zone Strategy was an initiative funded by the City of Saint Paul’s CVZ program. The goal of this initiative led to a clear set of implementable actions that would help foster increased commercial vitality on Rice Street north of University in the Capitol Area. The outreach efforts included multiple survey stations that generated 500+ ideas, a survey, creative placemaking projects capturing community values, and four open studio design sessions where community members were invited to review and impact the emerging community planning in more depth. The City began implementation with the Building Upgrade Fund in early 2019.
 
The second document, The Capitol Rice Development Framework, was adopted in January 2019 as a component of Chapter 7A of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Nearly twenty stakeholder community groups and public agencies reviewed and provided comment on the plan ahead of unanimous Board approvals in late 2018 and early 2019. 

Capitol Heights

The entirety of the Capitol Heights neighborhood falls within the Capitol Area. A thorough small area planning process is required to update the Area Plan for Capitol Heights.

Fitzgerald Park 

Five blocks of the Fitzgerald Park neighborhood fall within the Capitol Area. As such, the CAAPB is a major stakeholder in the city’s planning efforts. Additionally, the five blocks are important in how the Capitol Area connects to downtown Saint Paul. This planning track outlined our efforts to work with the City of Saint Paul PED in its planning efforts, as well as CAAPB responsibility to reach out to building owner/managers regarding our Comprehensive Plan and upcoming zoning update.

 

back to top