Twenty-six years ago, as I worked at my first high school job at a West Side steakhouse, a pair of steak-chomping St. Paul men called me to their table.
“Hey kid, help me settle a bet,” the guy motioned to me, pausing his conversation.
A teenage busboy, I was thrilled just to be noticed.
“What’s the best street in St. Paul: Grand Avenue or University Avenue?”
“Um, Grand Avenue, I guess,” I sheepishly opined.
Boy, was he pleased.
My take might have been accurate for 1995, but that was a long time ago. I like to joke that Grand Avenue peaked in 1990 when then Soviet Premier Michael Gorbachev ate perestroika walleye at the Tavern on Grand, a long-time neighborhood fixture. In typical St. Paul fashion, everything has been preserved in amber since.
Of course, that’s not exactly true. There have been a couple of new buildings on East Grand Avenue (the stretch from Lexington to Ramsey Hill), including a parking garage at Victoria Street and a four-story apartment complex near Oxford. But for the most part change has been slow going on Crocus Hill.
That stasis might finally be breaking apart in 2021 as two very different development proposals have popped up on the same Grand Avenue block, between Grotto and St. Albans Streets. They place a stark choice before the city’s policymakers. That choice could decide the fate of the street.
On the one hand, a developer wants to transform the mothballed former Pier 1 Imports store on the corner into a chain restaurant and regional bank branch with two drive-thru lanes. The proposal would make the most out of the parking lots around the building while re-using the existing commercial structure.
Meanwhile, on the other corner, Peter Kenefick, the long-time owner of Dixie’s Restaurant, wants to build a mixed-use project with 79 apartments atop commercial space on an acre lot, half of which is currently surface parking. The building would rebuild some of his existing restaurants in a new building below four stories of housing.
[image_credit]Reuter Walton[/image_credit][image_caption]A rendering of a proposed development on land currently occupied by Dixie's on Grand.[/image_caption]
Some resistance to increased density
On the one hand, there is already resistance from some neighbors to increasing density. A recent contentious meeting floating the Dixie’s project was met with consternation over traffic and parking, and some others have begun handing out fliers door to door along the street with alarming cries about traffic and parking.
[image_credit]Courtesy of Dan Marshall[/image_credit][image_caption]A flier advocating against Grand Avenue redevelopment.[/image_caption]
One point of debate is the 15-year-old East Grand Avenue Overlay, a local zoning ordinance limiting the size of new buildings.
“[The] East Grand Avenue plan was the only strategy that could be thought of at the time to moderate the pace of development,” said Merritt Clapp-Smith, who was a recent speaker in the Community Thinkers series, explaining how planning for Grand Avenue has shifted over the years. “Some people were concerned about the height of buildings or the mass, but it was as much about concern that new development would displace independent businesses typically and come in with chain stores.”
Clapp-Smith is an urban planning consultant who lived near Grand Avenue for decades, and was involved in 2006 when the overlay zoning was first created. Intended to preserve small-scale and local businesses, the rules limit new developments to 75,000 square feet and/or three stories in height.
While the zoning rules probably prevented some displacement along the street, at the same time they prevented any change that might have benefited the street in positive ways. Meanwhile, chain stores like the ones involved in the Pier 1 proposal appreciate the availability of drive-thrus and surface parking lots.
As Clapp-Smith sees it, the 15-year-old zoning rules probably need to be revisited in light of shifting city priorities.
“Things in an area change over time,” said Clapp-Smith. “What remains true for Grand Avenue is that some of the historic retail and residential form gives it a uniqueness and identity that draws people from around the Twin Cities to shop and live around there instead of many other places they might choose.”
Grand Avenue’s transformations
If you read about the history of the Grand Avenue — for example, pick up Grand Avenue: The Renaissance of an Urban Street — you realize how mercurial the street once was. Transforming from a streetcar corridor to a row of auto dealerships (!) and again into a small-scale commercial strip. The latter transformation was once a quiet revolution in St. Paul, and reading the descriptions of the first adaptive reuse projects, it’s easy imagine what previous generations valued about Grand: the intimate, walkable experience; the diversity of local businesses; the historic commercial structures; and the old apartment buildings contributing to bustling streets.
Like it or not, that vision of Grand Avenue has been slowly fading away. It’s no longer the most walkable street in the area (that honor belongs to Selby, a half-mile to the north), and even the bougie chain stores — North Face and The Loft — have been closing. Meanwhile, the local business association has been in disarray for years, even canceling the street’s annual walking festival for two years in a row.
At the same time, there’s increasing demand for restaurants and apartments throughout St. Paul, and especially along streets like Grand. The shift has meant an increase in development proposals like the Dixie’s Apartments and a potential mixed-use grocery store a block to the west.
Going all-in on walkability
If you ask me, it’s long past time for Grand Avenue to double-down on its historic density. With new development, the street could look and feel less like a suburban strip mall and more like a city street.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Bill Lindeke[/image_credit][image_caption]Businesses at the intersection of Victoria and Grand.[/image_caption]
That’s a recipe for success. Adding more density and housing to Grand Avenue will open the door to a people-centered street. With more housing and looking less a strip mall, maybe in a few years, if you ask the guys at the steakhouse where to find the city’s best street, they might claim again that Grand Avenue is the place to be in St. Paul.
Interesting article, with food for thought.
I would have said University was better, but after the denial of the Alatus project and the mind-numbing rationale behind it. I’m not sure what is worse – the Grand Ave Nimbys or whatever that was.
I remember the good old 90s, when I’d drive over to St. Paul, drive into the always available parking at Restoration Hardware, do some shopping, and then briefly curse while I looked to re-park to go to Cafe Latte. But that street was like a magnet to me. Lots of evenings at Tavern on Grand, too. I think I aged out more than the street changing (or, I guess to your point NOT changing). This was a thoughtful piece.
As a side note, the Dixies rendering at the top of the article looks good to me, but I’m pro-apartments and appreciate that it isn’t trying to maximize the lot (some of the newer U shape buildings have such tiny central ‘courts’).
To stay on the architectural critique, though, I can foresee a day – not long now – when we all look at the 100s of buildings that are 3 or 4 stories of brick, and a top floor of brown-black metal cladding and say, yep that was a look! So 2010s! It doesn’t break up the massing, it just looks like every building has had a set of portable buildings helicoptered onto them.
It looks good to me too! Quite nice, in fact. Especially with those large balconies.
In fact, the upper floors look like a lot of multi-floor residential buildings in the area on the side streets.
Good afternoon, Bill.
Thanks for your article. I have read many of your posts over the years, but I have always been hesitant to comment and open myself up for public scrutiny and the wrath of the internet, but here goes. I would like to enjoin your readers not to make this into a simplistic “This versus That” argument. False dichotomies lead to polarization, and I daresay we have all learned how dangerous that is to democracy. There is a big wide boulevard between No-to-Everything (often characterized as NIMBY) and Yes-To-Anything (possibly characterized as Houston?).
I am writing to express my strong support for a “both-and” solution: vibrant business on Grand Avenue AND vibrant residential with great livability — this includes on and adjacent to Grand Avenue, as well the broader Summit Hill. (Grand is mixed use, and between Oakland and Lexington there is not a single block without housing, and most blocks are more residential than commercial.) This proposal is not “both-and”; it has been presented as “either/or”–meaning that the only option for supporting Grand business would be at the expense of the neighbors. This is not a long term recipe for healthy business, and certainly not for the residential neighborhood.
Are you and your readers familiar with current street presence of St Albans Street? It has a graceful sidewalk presence marked by linden trees, multiunit urban-scale landscaping and tourism-worthy architecture. It is, I humbly suggest, the kind of “gentle density” street we want more of in St Paul. Buildings would be built architecturally different today than they were in 1890-1910, but this scale of multi-unit housing is worth studying and adapting to today’s construction methods. This block of St Albans between Summit and Grand, other than the parking lot for Dixies, is 100% multifamily.
My givens: I am a huge proponent for the so-named “Missing Middle” scale. [Link for anyone who needs it: https://missingmiddlehousing.com] I know you are familiar with Missing Middle, Bill, but for those who may be less familiar, here is the definition, “Missing Middle Housing is a range of house-scale buildings with multiple units—compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes—located in a walkable neighborhood.” Summit Hill is a *Not-Missing* Middle neighborhood; and this is one the neighborhood’s greatest strengths and the main source of Grand’s walkability. (Another is the symbiotic relationship between Summit and Grand — Summit as an urban parkway with trees and architecture as its main park amenities, with privately maintained sidewalks and some of the city’s oldest dedicated on-street bike lanes to access it. But I digress. That’s an essay I need to write someday.) There is a node of density centered on Grand and Dale (that includes St Albans, Lincoln, Summit, Oakland) that has the highest existing density levels in Summit Hill, and is among the highest of St Paul neighborhoods. Our multiple unit buildings are two-story multi-units, townhouse, duplexes and triplexes, intergenerational living and co-housing, converted mansion multi-unit, and at the largest end of the spectrum we have three-story and three-story with garden level multi-unit buildings. Summit Hill’s density levels are achieved at Middle scale, by spreading households out in many buildings and buildings types over the full block, rather than through a single skyscraper of intensive density surrounded by a sea of single family, or dorms on a large residential college campus. Summit Hill’s existing neighborhood character is middle density.
Most people are surprised to learn that the four blocks that meet at the corner of Grand and Dale have an average block density of 17,732 PPSM, Why “surprised”? Because it’s not tall. It creates this density in that “Middle Scale” that doesn’t feel colossal. For comparison, St Paul’s average density is 5,800 PPSM. (Source: citydata.com)
At further risk of too much exposure on the internet, but with the intent of disclosing knowledge base as well as potential biases, I will disclose that I have a graduate degree in a professional field that means I read the zoning code a lot (purposefully being internet vague). I live in Middle Density and am raising kids within the “Grandendale” node I described, in multi-unit housing. We have made this choice, but I also support one-family houses in the city. (Many people–most especially families with children– want the independence and the space of a detached house. A city needs all ages of people, including children.) I am in favor of more and many types of housing in St Paul, at scales appropriate to context. We are still only working our way back up to our population peak from three score years ago, we don’t need to be building all our lots to 85% lot coverage in all corners of the city. And really, we should be incentivizing higher levels of density where we as taxpayers have invested in transit, along our high frequency transit routes. The proposed details and scale of this project just do not work with this size site, in its given context.
The Dixies site is just six typical city lots, 40 wide by 150 deep, so 240 x 150. I would welcome filling in the hole that was created when Schiller’s Grocery (c. late 1960s) paved the giant parking lot. But not to the extent that I would welcome something that would be harmful to the neighborhood in its place. I don’t say that lightly. The scale of this project is larger in every direction: greater lot coverage, greater height, greater massing, than even the largest scale of the buildings around it. It places the longest, highest walls closest to the residential neighborhood. Traditional Neighborhood zoning calls for “transitions to residential” which is meant to mean stepping down in scale, i.e. lowering the height, increasing setbacks, and using other design elements to transition down. This design steps up in scale to the residential.
Is there a way to include images in the comments? I don’t see one. If not, could I email you? I would love to share some images that put the scale of this building in deeper context. I really think this is a complicated proposal with complicated details that warrant close study.
I will close with a personal note that I have been really troubled by the comments made here and there on social media that have stated that the negatives only affect a “small area”; this is never a good place to be in. But, in this case, this “small” area is within that “Grandendale node” where we have our highest density in Summit Hill. That means its impact is amplified, and perhaps the location with the single greatest impact possible (i.e. most households impacted) in our district. I truly hope that we can build toward a vision for Grand (and the City) that doesn’t create sacrificial pockets.
That’s exactly the kind of thoughtful comment that I love finding on MinnPost and Streets.mn. Thank you.
Weird, because I support Streets.mn to push back on dishonest thinking like this. The cities have an acute shortage of housing, and a resulting housing affordability problem. And this kind of nonsense – cherry picking of numbers, concerns about height and lot filling – these are the tools of the NIMBYs.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Sonja. I’m with you until the end…
To me, this project is not “harmful.” There are 4-story apartments dating to the 1920s across the street, all of which come up to the property line without setbacks. Adding another floor to a new building, built a hundred years later, does not seem outrageous to my sensibilities. I think more housing, people, and density on this part of Grand would add economic and social vitality to the area. Especially with two undergraduate schools along the route, density will also greatly help make the case for better transit on Grand. I would think this is a great candidate for an aBRT project in the future.