The League of Minnesota Cities on Thursday honored St. Charles and three other cities for administrative efforts to improve their communities.
         
St. Charles won the category for Maintaining and Improving City Infrastructure for its development of Chattanooga Innovation Park. The business park was begun in the wake of a 2009 fire that destroyed North Star Foods Co.

According to the Post-Bulletin of Rochester, the infrastructure improvements for the business park cost more than $2 million.

To defray the cost, the St. Charles City Council landed a grant from the State Department of Employment and Economic Development. The city " is building itself as a resilient community," said a League of Minnesota Cities news release.

The other three award-winning cities were Centerville, for a storm-water project; Columbia Heights, for a city-school cooperative venture to benefit youth, including an anti-bullying program, and Brooklyn Center, for a performance-based rental program.