According to Community Broadband Networks, St Louis Park is working successfully with developers to encourage them to build in conduit to make new buildings ready for broadband. The city doesn’t have any regulation requiring accommodations yet – but the builders see the value in making building technology-friendly so the collaboration has been pretty easy.

Community Broadband Networks shares some of the language St Louis Park is using. It’s helpful to any community looking to encourage the same forward-thinking development…

The effort is St. Louis Park’s intention to turn the city into a “technology connected community,” and is part of St. Louis Park City Council Goals & Priorities. The city and the developer begin with basic language and the parties make changes to accommodate the unique needs of each development:

Broadband Readiness

Redeveloper shall install at its cost dedicated wired connections from each building’s telecommunications point of presence to each internal wiring closet, thence to each living and working unit. Each living and working unit shall have a minimum of two (2) connections, each capable of supporting at minimum a one-gigabit connection.

To provide for future high-speed broadband service, the Redeveloper shall install at its cost one empty 2-inch conduit from within a new or existing handhole in proximity to its existing telecommunications services, typically in public Right-of-Way, (Point A) to a point of presence within each building in proximity to its existing telecommunications services (Point B). Alternatively, the developer shall provide an easement to the City of St. Louis Park that can accommodate said 2-inch conduit from Point A to Point B, inclusive of related telecommunications facilities at each point.