Downtown Minneapolis is about to have a new voice on the City Council – one whose opinions could break from current downtown leaders once she officially takes office.

It’s Loring Heights resident Katie Cashman, who will replace retiring Ward 7 Councilmember Lisa Goodman on Jan. 1, 2024. Ward 7 covers the Loring Park and Downtown West neighborhoods, plus others to the southwest.

Cashman was among several more progressive candidates endorsed by Minneapolis for the Many in the 2023 City Council election. With help from an enthusiastic volunteer base, she narrowly beat Scott Graham, the well-funded All of Mpls endorsee, who owns his own real estate company, Uptown Realty. Cashman won by just 59 votes.

Cashman, however, will certainly not be the most progressive member of the council. She came out against a hard rent control cap and in favor of hiring a couple hundred police officers to meet the staffing number required by the city charter.

By her own count, Cashman “connected with 5,000 downtown residents in the Loring Park and Downtown West neighborhoods” throughout the campaign.

This is Cashman’s first term in public office, but she has several years of experience in public service. She spent three years working on urban development for a United Nations mission in Nairobi, Kenya, then worked with 2811, a climate advocacy organization focused on education across Latin America, North America and Europe. 

Most recently, she was a project manager for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, which supports an array of regional climate and environmental causes. Her green bona fides earned her an endorsement from actress and activist Jane Fonda, the local chapter of the Sunrise movement, and the Sierra Club, among others. 

With that background, Cashman is a good fit to represent some of the city’s most densely built, transit-dependent neighborhoods. And she draws qualified praise from Goodman, who last month described Cashman “a lovely person” who’s “very smart, very energetic, [and] has done some great international work” at her final Lunch With Lisa event.

But Cashman is realistic about the challenges she’ll face in office, too — including at least one likely to affect her commute to her new office downtown..

REIMAGINING NICOLLET (AGAIN)

Goodman, Ward 7’s councilmember for a quarter century, wants buses off Nicollet Mall. So does Ward 3 Councilmember Michael Rainville, who also represents Downtown West, as well as Downtown East.

“We need a big jolt and a big change in thinking for Nicollet Mall,” Rainville told Downtown Voices.

Minneapolis Downtown Council President Adam Duininck also supports a pedestrian-only Nicollet Mall. As does the Minneapolis Foundation. And Mayor Jacob Frey.

Not Cashman, though. At least, not entirely.

“I do have concerns about fully moving transit off Nicollet Mall,” Cashman said in a recent interview with Downtown Voices.

This summer’s on-mall programming was a good start, Cashman said, but she worries City leaders underestimate the challenge of activating a 10-block stretch of Nicollet year-round. 

“If it were up to me – and maybe it will be – we’d close two or three blocks and ensure adequate activity in that space,” Cashman said.

As a transit user, Cashman said she worries about the impacts on thousands of downtown commuters and transit-dependent residents like her. Once seated, she’ll ride the 18 bus to City Hall. Many of the buses proposed to move off Nicollet would end up on Hennepin Avenue, potentially slowing traffic to a crawl in its new bus lanes, Cashman said.

“I’ll be watching to see what Metro Transit proposes to mitigate that,” Cashman said. 

EXPANDING (AFFORDABLE) FOOD OPTIONS

Cashman also has her attention on creating opportunities for small businesses downtown. 

Despite tentative signs of a retail and foodservice renaissance in the skyways, many grab-and-go spots remain vacant. The food truck population has declined significantly since the pandemic, leaving parts of downtown devoid of quick bites. 

Instead of doubling down on upscale restaurants charging $20 or $30 (or more) per plate, Cashman wants to focus on bringing more local food entrepreneurs downtown. 

Minneapolis teems with food business incubators, like Northeast’s Food Building, Elliot Park’s Finnovation Lab, and NEON’s planned commercial kitchen on the Northside. Cashman thinks there’s room for another in Ward 7, maybe a food truck incubator to help revitalize the area’s mobile food scene.

By drawing more diners into parks and onto the street into the evening, a livelier mobile food scene would have benefits for public safety, Cashman told Downtown Voices.

For example, Loring Park — a place Cashman describes as “huge, centrally located green space” — has no regular food vendors. She plans to speak with Park Board representatives about changing that.

ADDING HOUSING, PRESERVING DOWNTOWN TAX BASE

Cashman is taking office amid one of the worst commercial real estate markets in memory. Because downtown office buildings account for an outsize share of the city’s property tax revenue, the downturn is a problem not just for office building owners and lenders but possibly for Minneapolis homeowners. 

“If we have downtown office buildings selling at 30% of their pre-pandemic values, think about what that does to our tax base,” Cashman said. If the City’s commercial property tax receipts go down, it could seek higher taxes on residential property to balance future budgets.

Converting older office buildings to housing could chip away at the problem. The Northstar Center East conversion will add more than 200 new apartments on the skyway next year. Another project near HCMC will add about 60 units affordable to folks earning as little as 30% of the area’s median income. The Warehouse District has dozens of older commercial mid-rises that could support hundreds more converted apartments and single-room occupancy units, Cashman said.

About 57,000 people lived downtown last year, and conversions alone won’t get it to downtown boosters’ long-held goal of 70,000 residents by 2025 (Downtown’s population growth noticeably slowed last year.)

Cashman wants developers to prioritize building deeply affordable ground-up housing projects on surface parking lots across her part of downtown. And she wants to work with her Council colleagues and other local stakeholders to reimagine underutilized institutional spaces, like the recently-closed downtown YWCA.

"SOMEONE WHO IS RELATABLE"

Revitalizing Minneapolis’ Main Street, incentivizing office conversions, and expanding affordable food options downtown — these are all worthy pursuits for downtown’s newest councilmember.

But it’s not just the chance to shape big-picture policy that has Cashman eager to get to work come January. She sounds most excited when discussing her campaign-trail interactions with future constituents — and looking ahead to the everyday, block-by-block problems she’ll be expected to solve (or at least listen to) as a local representative.

Her first order of business is making sure all of her constituents feel seen. Campaigning downtown, in some of Ward 7’s lowest-turnout precincts, Cashman said she “heard from so many residents who don’t feel connected to their neighborhoods or involved in planning and decision-making.”

”I want people to feel like they have representation… to see someone who is relatable to them,” Cashman said.