Strategy in Action

The Rondo Community Land Trust (CLT) is the first commercial land trust in the Twin Cities and serves the City of St. Paul and suburban Ramsey County. The CLT honors Rondo Avenue, a commercial corridor renamed during the construction of Interstate 94, which displaced Black families and thriving Black-owned businesses. In 2015, Rondo CLT and its partner Trellis Co., a local nonprofit housing developer, built the Selby Miton Victoria Project, two mixed-use buildings that provide 9,300 square feet of affordable commercial space along with affordable senior housing. The land trust owns the commercial space and leases it to small, local and BIPOC businesses, including six Black-owned businesses, at below-market rates of  around $7 per square foot.