The mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul got together Tuesday morning for an annual event to talk about the challenges facing their respective cities and possible solutions.

KSTP Chief Political Reporter Tom Hauser moderated the “Breakfast with the Mayors” event with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

Both Frey and Carter said revitalizing their cities’ downtowns was a key issue. Office building vacancies have become a growing problem, and developers are now looking to converting some commercial real estate to residential units.

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“We’re working together at the Capitol to get a housing conversion credit to help make it easier for buildings to convert office space into residential space,” Carter said. “We’ve got a few projects underway that we’re very excited about.”

Frey agreed, saying not all office buildings — where vacancy rates can be 25-30% — will continue to be offices.

“Downtowns are an ecosystem and they’re going to change,” Frey said. “And it’s not going to be the cities that are clinging white-knuckled to what once was. It’s going to be those that embrace the change that ultimately succeed.”

RELATED: From work to a home: Downtown Minneapolis leaders working to convert office buildings into apartments

The mayors said attracting major events to both city centers will help. They also realize they need to address the perception that downtown areas are not safe.

“We used to think if we wanted a place to be safe, we’d have to clear out all the people, send everybody home and get it empty,” Carter said. “But actually the opposite is true. When we’re vibrant, we have people occupying spaces, that limits opportunities for people to do the types of behavior we don’t want them to do.”

Frey says people who are worried about whether Minneapolis is safe should come see for themselves.

“Is it that there’s a lack of safety or is it that people feel less safe when there’s not a lot of other people around them?” Frey said. “It kind of becomes a chicken or the egg thing and we’ve seen this over the years. You know you don’t get full safety until people are there and you don’t get people there until it’s safe. Guess what? It’s safe!”

As for their political futures, the mayors said they both plan to run for reelection this year.