Mpls Downtown Improvement District

They're easy to spot in their bright lime-green uniforms. "Ambassadors" are on hand to answer questions and clean up graffiti and trash, among the many other things they do in downtown Minneapolis.  

The Ambassadors collectively cover 125 blocks for the Downtown Improvement District (DID). DID is a public-private partnership that the local business community started in 2009 to keep the downtown area safe, clean, and green.

District COO Sarah Harris made the case for the DID model during a talk she gave on Nov. 5 at the Urban Land Institute.

DID, she told The Line, is one of several "business improvement districts" (BIDs) throughout the city, which help fund improvements within certain boundaries. Its mission is to "make downtown a thriving and competitive environment for recruiting and retaining businesses, employees, residents, and visitors," its website states.

Or, as Harris puts it more simply, "We are the concierge for downtown."

With over 1,000 districts nationwide to learn from, she says, "We took the best practices from several other districts and pieced them together based on what would work best in our community."    

Already, it's getting results, statistics show: Working with police, Ambassadors, who are keyed into the zone's radios and cameras, have helped dramatically decrease problems with chronic offenders. And their first-aid training has helped save lives--21 since Sept. 30 of this year, by DID's count.  

The Ambassador program is just one of many services the DID provides, including landscaping, snow removal, repair work, and more.

Thanks in part to their efforts, a recent DID survey found, downtowners' perceptions of their environment have greatly improved. "People said the area seemed friendlier, cleaner and safer," she says, adding that she gets numerous emails daily encouraging the DID to keep up the good work.

Source: Sarah Harris, COO, Downtown Improvement District
Writer: Anna Pratt
http://www.thelinemedia.com/devnews/dtimprovementdistrict111010.aspx