Saint Paul - General Topics

[bubzki2]

^ I agree. Let's emphasize one nice connection to reinforce what we already have. Ideally, a nice, active street between Rice Park and Mears Park.

I also continue to believe the Riversedge project could be a major jolt downtown. People love getting close to waterfront with activities and places to eat and drink. Those are lacking today. Other much smaller and less affluent cities seem to do this better than either Mpls or St.P.

[Lando Laker]

Downtown St Paul has good bones. It could be a great river town if there were some hard charging visionaries. What I find lacking is little vision with what DT St Paul can be. Mayor Carter where are you? In Mpls, mayor Frey at least has been working towards making DT a mixed use 24/7 area, cheerleading, getting stakeholders together etc. (This is NOT an endorsement of Frey) Former mayor Rybak has been leading the charge as well. I'm seeing a clear divergence of activity where DT Mpls is growing and St Paul is stagnant. St Paul could have a chip on it's shoulder and be something else altogether.

[Didier]

Downtown St Paul has good bones.

I agree with this. Bones-wise, downtown St. Paul is arguably better than downtown Minneapolis.

Building on twincitizen’s comment, I wonder if now might be an opportunity to try to fix the incoherent system of one-way roads.

[nate]

Idea: focus on 5th St east to west and Robert St north to south as residential corridors, and forget about the rest.

5th St... great terminating vistas/amenities at St Paul Hotel/Rice Park and CHS Field. Passes Rice Park. Has good transit. Focus on: Conversion of Alliance Bank midcentury tower for housing (but try to undo at least the parking garage over Cedar St), good frontage for the Central Station development, and activating frontages and adding housing. 5th Already has landlords who have done recent improvements and have more skin in the game such as Osborne 360.

Demolish the US Bank building which is nearly an entire block of concrete podium, former auto bank, etc. Roll into that as a centerpiece Phase II after Central Station. Find a good landlord who and subsidize some major renos and streetscape improvements around 5th/Robert such as redoing the First National Bank MCM/parking podium. Open up the frontage of the Empire Building and 370 Jackson and pursue residential conversion.

I agree its smart to focus on targeted areas and those two corners are great places to focus. There is some really interesting potential with the Alliance Bank podium facing 5th. No reason that couldn't be opened up and activated significantly at street level. What if the Farmers Market moved into the street level and was open year round? That would open up a block for residential development where Downtown is healthier/people are more likely to want to live while bringing a reliable draw of activity to the core. Win/Win.

[BigIdeasGuy]

I really like idea of using of focusing on 5th but to me the Alliance Bank Building is the one that needs to go, including the awful bridge/parking extension over Cedar. Rebuild the missing skyway connections along Cedar & 6th then leave the block as a very simple grassy park. Work on improved streetscapes as mentioned, including a really good connection to the Osborne 360 plaza. From there get Central Station redeveloped, the a new footing for the St. Paul Athletic Club as something. At that point you can reevaluate where what's best to do with the Alliance Bank block, redevelop or improve the park

Riversedge is just going to have to wait for a while. It's too big and important to get right to settle for mediocrity and good enough.

[daveybabymsp]

This discussion reminds me of this article from last year:

https://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2024 ... -the-best/

I wonder if anyone is actually planning on following this plan

[BikesOnFilm]

Come on, Saints. Read the room - They're asking the state for $8 million to build a ferris wheel at their stadium

It's not the biggest request for state dollars that's come out of Saint Paul in recent months, but the pile is growing.

[seanrichardryan]

They literally could have bought the Betty Dangers Ferris wheel for much cheaper. It was for sale separate from the restaurant.

[twincitizen]

Sounds like they are trying to keep up with the Quad Cities River Bandits: https://www.milb.com/news/gcs-101040800

[Mdcastle]

I mean, we've been taking hard-earned taking tax money from burger flippers and widget makers and been handing it over to billonaires so they can make even more billions by having sports palaces built for them ever just about every time they it came up over the last 25 years, so it seems that asking for money really is "reading the room". And in the context of how much taxpayers are being soaked for the new Twins and Vikings Stadium I don't see a request for a Ferris Wheel from the Saints as particularly outragous.

[BikesOnFilm]

It's not outrageous to ask, but considering Saint Paul has a massive existing pile of LGA requests that aren't going to get funding in a contentious budget year with a deficit on the horizon, the odds seem stacked against the ferris wheel. That's the "reading the room" part, understanding the context of a situation before asking for something that will make you sound ridiculous.