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This coverage is made possible by a grant from The Saint Paul Foundation.

Construction to begin on St. Paul’s long-delayed downtown Penfield project

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The Penfield site on Monday night, with construction still pending.

The Penfield project — a major downtown St. Paul building that will have 254 apartments on top of a Lunds grocery store — is going up. At last.

Officials closed on the financing Friday, and construction was scheduled to start this week. An official groundbreaking will be held in mid-July.

The $62 million building is going up on the site of the former downtown police and fire headquarters, on the block bordered by 10th, 11th, Minnesota and Robert.

Early versions of the project were floated in 2004, but the recession and financing problems kept derailing the effort.

Finally, with the scaled-down version getting a HUD  commitment for mortgage insurance in May, it got the green light.

The market-rate apartments, (as opposed to subsidized ones) will be near the coming Central Corridor light-rail line connecting downtown St. Paul with downtown Minneapolis, via University Avenue.

The project is owned by St. Paul’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority and managed by Village Green. The architectural firm is The BKV Group, and WEIS Builders is the general contractor.

Here are the tentative plans for early work on the site:

Week 1 (This Week):

  •  Preliminary work, and site  clearing and abatement begin.

Weeks 2 & 3

  • Complete abatement, remove skyway, complete perimeter fencing and gates, install temporary steel footings and start temporary steel.

Week 4

  • Temporary steel installation and demolition work to begin within the building.

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Comments (2)

  1. Submitted by Sara Fleets on 06/27/2012 - 11:29 am.

    Noise

    Excited for the project and a grocery. Not looking forward to the pile driving.

  2. Submitted by Dennis Tester on 06/27/2012 - 12:15 pm.

    Should the taxpayers really

    be involved in the rental housing business?

    Is the project projected to make money or lose money?
    Who sets the rents?
    Who pays for maintenance?
    Are the rents intended to compete in the housing market with privately-held apartment buildings?
    If so, is it fair to the privately-held apartment buildings that the government can keep the rents low because they have an endless supply of taxpayer money?
    If the project makes a profit, what happens to the money?
    Do the taxpayers get a dividend check?

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