Planning for Central Corridor public art

A coalition designing a plan for art along the Central Corridor light rail line is planning four public meetings this week.

Public Art St. Paul is among many the groups behind the Central Corridor Public Art Plan. President Christine Podas-Larson says the meetings will be a forum for artists to learn what social, environmental and other issues residents want reflected in art.

"What do they care about?" Podas-Larson said. "What are the social issues that are out there? why do people gather? What is the nature of gathering places? We really want to understand that better so that in this plan that can be expressed and have a meaningful place."

The first meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the Wilder Center in St. Paul. Meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday will be in Minneapolis, at the Brian Coyle Center and at University Lutheran Church of Hope. A meeting on Thursday will be at the McNally-Smith College of Music in downtown St. Paul.

Podas-Larson says the plan will include the streetscapes, parks and open spaces throughout the neighborhoods along the light rail line, which will run between the downtowns of St. Paul and Minneapolis starting in 2014.

"In the same sense that cities have, you know, plans for parks and open space plans, they have plans for storm water management, this is a plan for public art that is intended to be embeded into the way the cities do business over a long period of time," she said.

Podas-Larson says artists and planners will integrate what they learn at the meetings into the overall plan, which will be presented to the community before the end of the year.

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