Saint Paul - General Topics

[BikesOnFilm]

The Downtown Saint Paul Lunds & Byerlys will be closing at the end of March: https://www.twincities.com/2025/03/07/d ... -march-26/

[BigIdeasGuy]

Another body blow for DT St. Paul

https://www.yahoo.com/news/st-paul-alli ... p_catchall

[BikesOnFilm]

James Crockarell keeps sapping Downtown Saint Paul's vitality, even from beyond the grave.

[nate]

I work down here and yeah, it feels quite ominous to have an entire city block go dark essentially overnight. And there's really no source of help on the horizon: the Madison Equities properties continue to tank, any new investment at Central Station or the river is years away, the State has vacated their presence in the core, lost the grocery store, smaller companies moving out, housing conversions need their lease-up period (and honestly, what's the draw for folks to live down here these days)...

Hopefully between Ecolab, Securian, the museums, and Xcel Center there's enough of a base to sustain downtown til whatever comes next...but it's hard not to feel pretty damned pessimistic these days.

[seanrichardryan]

Madison Equities parking ramp at 6th & Wall was just condemned as well.

[BikesOnFilm]

Hopefully between Ecolab, Securian, the museums, and Xcel Center there's enough of a base to sustain downtown til whatever comes next...but it's hard not to feel pretty damned pessimistic these days.

Unscientific sample size of two, but the hockey fans I know are hoping a new Wolves/Lynx stadium lures the Wild over to Minneapolis. Considering updates for Xcel are in the long, perennial queue of Saint Paul projects hoping for state funding, would it be completely unexpected if that happened?

[MNdible]

I'd be awfully surprised if that happened. St. Paul historically gets more than its fair share of state largesse for projects like this, and especially now with their downtown suffering, I just can't see the legislature supporting a Wild move.

I do think it would be great if our mid-sized metro wasn't trying to support two competing arenas when much larger metros have NBA and NHL teams sharing a venue, but I think this bit of the Twin Cities rivalry is unavoidable.

[thespeedmccool]

Madison Equities parking ramp at 6th & Wall was just condemned as well.

If I were the city/county, I would be doing everything in my power to dispossess Madison Equities of all their downtown properties.

They clearly don't care and are happy to see the properties decline until they're condemned. Total slumlords.

[Rube Dali]

Madison Equities parking ramp at 6th & Wall was just condemned as well.

If I were the city/county, I would be doing everything in my power to dispossess Madison Equities of all their downtown properties.

They clearly don't care and are happy to see the properties decline until they're condemned. Total slumlords.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-ne ... -to-vacate

[Rube Dali]

City Council gets thrown under the bus(may be paywalled):
https://www.startribune.com/an-unseriou ... /601242635

[thespeedmccool]

City Council gets thrown under the bus(may be paywalled):
https://www.startribune.com/an-unseriou ... /601242635

I'll read a single word written by Andy Brehm when he's no longer a breathless Republican hack. Not that I think St. Paul has made very good policy decisions recently, but Brehm is just trying to cash in on "LOL DFL city bad" more than he wants to help anyone solve any problem.

More importantly, I think there are cities in this country significantly more poorly governed than St. Paul (Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles) that are doing fine right now, and that should tell you that it's not St. Paul's fault so much as "the national economy doesn't support cities like St. Paul very well right now." When Trump tanks the economy, cheap office space in low cost-of-living states will suddenly become all the rage for start-ups, and St. Paul (if properly positioned for it) will have a little renaissance.

(As a side note, this is why I think the "tear down empty downtown offices" discussion is way, way premature.)

Right now, things are tough, but I think St. Paul should mostly stay the course by investing in the community rather than buy into whatever corporate-fealty or austerity Brehm is selling (though I would probably kill rent control.)

[seanrichardryan]

Surprised he didn't work in 'woke' and 'DEI' somewhere.

[MNdible]

I mean, it can both be true that Andy Brehm is a breathless Republican hack taking cheap shots at St. Paul, and also that the St. Paul (and Minneapolis) city council are more concerned with performative BS that makes the left online fringe feel good while ignoring basic good governance issues.

[bubzki2]

He commutes from St. Paul to Wayzata. Dude is insane on those grounds alone.