Just one of about 40 St. Paul Neighborhood STAR grants went to an arts organization

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
Updated ·5 min read
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Not long ago, Mark Pfeifer applied to the city of St. Paul for just under $50,000 to spruce up the Hmong Cultural Center on University Avenue, as well as to expand its new museum next door. As the longstanding program director with the center, he was hopeful that the city’s Neighborhood STAR grant program would be a logical funding source to improve disability access, lighting and a room dedicated to children’s music lessons.

To his surprise, the Hmong Cultural Center was turned down for funding by the 12-member Neighborhood STAR board, which makes spending recommendations to the mayor’s office.

So were previous recipients like the East Side Freedom Library, TaikoArts Midwest and at least seven or eight different nonprofit arts organizations. In fact, none of the 41 in Neighborhood STAR grants — which are funded by the city’s half-cent sales tax — went to the arts through the traditional deadline-driven process. The grants total $2.3 million.

“Even though they had numerous applicants, this year they didn’t fund a single cultural arts project,” Pfeifer said. “They were all turned down.”

On Dec. 13, the city council dipped into a separate but related allocation of year-round Neighborhood STAR funding to make three special appropriations, including grant funding for one arts group — the Victoria Theater Arts Center, which will receive up to $90,000 for signage, flooring, and millwork at 825 University Ave. W.

The council also authorized $80,000 for a new drinking fountain at the future playground at United Village by Allianz Field, and $75,000 for capital improvements to supportive housing developed by the YWCA of St. Paul at 91 Lexington Ave. and 2052-2058 Saunders Ave.

Small businesses

Small businesses across the city fared better than the arts overall.

Among this year’s 41 Neighborhood STAR recipients were Grand Ole Creamery, Doge Pizza, Slice Pizza, Urban Growler Brewing, Lip Esteem and nonprofits such as African Economic Development Solutions, African Development Center, Hmong American Partnership and the Latino Economic Development Center. Most recipients will take in $50,000, and some received about three times that.

“The city received very few applications from arts and cultural organizations for the 2023 Neighborhood STAR program,” said Crystal King, a spokesperson for St. Paul Planning and Economic Development, in an email.

In his time on the Neighborhood STAR board, “primarily the aim of it has been to promote small business growth, though we don’t look at small business as being exclusively for-profit businesses,” said Nate Nins, the board’s newly-appointed chair and former vice-chair. “It’s more of a focus on building projects, permanent fixtures to properties and facade work.”

Nins said the program was retooled this year to drop loans as offerings, sticking instead exclusively to grant awards. Adding that and other changes cut into the application window, which opened June 30 and closed July 31. The tight timeframe may be one reason the program drew fewer arts and culture applicants than is typical, he speculated.

The Celtic Junction Arts Center had hoped to use Neighborhood STAR funding this year to complete work on its new outdoor stage along Prior Avenue but was turned down.

“That one has been an elusive one, let’s just say,” said Cormac O’Se, who runs the Irish-themed arts center with his wife Natalie, the executive director.

Cultural STAR funds $1.3 million

The city also funnels funding from its half-cent sales tax to nonprofits through another competitive program — the Cultural STAR grants — but by state statute, 80% of that money is targeted to arts and culture organizations based downtown.

Overall, $1.3 million in Cultural STAR grants this year went to 66 recipients, including some that had been turned down this year for Neighborhood STAR dollars, such as the Hmong Cultural Center, the East Side Freedom Library and TaikoArts Midwest.

Those grants averaged $20,000 apiece, and they tended to be geared toward special events and organizational development, as opposed to building construction.

“For Cultural Star, nobody gets capital grants of $50,000,” said Pfeifer, who sat on the city’s Cultural STAR board for three years. “They rarely give out capital grants, and if they do it’s going to be $10,000 if it’s in the neighborhoods.”

State requirements

East Side Freedom Library associate director Clarence White, who also sat on the Cultural STAR board for about three years, said the board during his time there struggled with state requirements that Cultural STAR money be largely focused within a designated downtown cultural district.

“There were so many things we wanted to support at that higher level, but there were so many that had to go to this downtown region,” White said. “We had to check with the city attorney’s office to figure out what the boundaries were.”

Jennifer Weir, executive director of TaikoArts Midwest, said she was grateful for a Cultural STAR grant her nonprofit received this year for $35,000 to host an international collaborative taiko drumming concert last May at the downtown Ordway concert stage. She had hoped to receive the city’s help to relocate the organization to a permanent new home in the city’s North End. She assumed TaikoArts had been turned down for Neighborhood STAR dollars because it had received Cultural STAR funding.

When it comes to seeding economic development in the city, “I personally feel that the arts are sometimes even more of an economic factor … because of the ability of arts to connect neighborhoods and bring vitality,” Weir said.

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