Community Investment
St. Louis Promise Zone

The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership is the lead organization serving as the “backbone” for the Promise Zone, with support from the St. Louis Development Corporation. This role includes coordinating partners, engaging the community and ensuring accountability in meeting our Promise Zone goals.

Partner organizations have demonstrated both capacity and commitment for fulfilling Promise Zone goals, and will provide staff and resources towards building a collective impact solution. Implementation partners include:

• City of St. Louis / St. Louis County
• St. Louis Development Corporation
• St. Louis City Planning and Urban Development / St. Louis County Office of Community Development
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – St. Louis Office

The following criteria are required for the federal Promise Zone designation:

• Promise Zones must encompass one or more census tract(s) or portions of census tracts across a contiguous geography.
• The overall poverty rate or Extremely Low Income rate (whichever is greater) of residents within the Promise Zone must be at or above 33 percent.
• Promise Zone boundaries must encompass a population of at least 10,000 but no more than 200,000 residents.
• Local leadership, including the mayors or chief executives of all local governments represented in the Promise Zone, must demonstrate commitment to the Promise Zone effort. Proposed Promise Zone boundaries may cross local government lines, but one Lead Applicant must be identified, and for cross-jurisdictional applications, commitment must be demonstrated by the leadership of all the local governments involved.