Deadline Looms for Selling Grand Lots
St. Thomas, neighbors are at odds over the marketing of off-campus property
By JANE MCCLURE
Local residents on the West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Committee (WSNAC) have turned heir thumbs down on St. Thomas' latest proposal for selling off three residential properties on Grand Avenue across the street from the university's campus.
Prospective developers Craig Anderson arid Frank Greczyna had asked WSNAC on May 12 what it thought about changing the zoning of one of the three contiguous properties from residential back to commercial.
The zoning of the lot at 2076 Grand, which has a maintenance garage on it, was changed from commercial to residential as part of the 2004 agreement among St. Thomas, its neighbors and the City of St. Paul that allowed the university to extend its campus to the two blocks bounded by Summit, Cleveland Grand and Cretin avenues.
According to Anderson, the cost to acquire all three properties and demolish the existing buildings is too great to make redeveloping all three lots as housing feasible in the current market. The two houses at 2080 and 2084 Grand could be renovated and sold, but that leaves the maintenance garage. "When the heck can you do with that?" Anderson asked.
Anderson suggested reopening the 2004 agreement to allow the rezoning of 2076 Grand to commercial use.
WSNAC members representing the Macalester-Groveland and Union Park distriuct councils, the Summit Avenue Residential Preservation Association and Neighbors United made it clear at they are opposed to any change that would force the reopening of the university's special condition use permit and the complex legal agreement that ammended it in 2004.
"It's frustrating to me that we’re in this situation,” said WSNAC co-chair Scott Banas. According to him, any amendment could unravel the entire 2004 agreement and negate years of progress in university-neighborhood relations.
The fear is that if the special condition use permit is reopened to address one issue, its other-points could all come into play as well.
The 2004 agreement created WSNAC and the processes used to review campus projects. It requires St. Thomas to buy 30 rental houses in the neighborhood around the campus over the course of 12 years and return them to owner-occupied status. The agreement also calls for the university to sell all of its off-campus properties by August 11, 2009.
The off-campus properties are to be sold strictly to owner-occupants and are not to be redeveloped as student housing. The intent of this provision was to discourage the longstanding practice of property owners in the neighborhood around St. Thomas from selling or bequeathing their property to the university, according to Marc Manderscheid, a Macalester-Groveland resident an member of WSNAC.
Over the past few years, three prospective buyers have backed out of plans to redevelop, the three Grand Avenue properties. "Were going to continue to market them and try our best to sell them,” said Mark Vangsayd, St. Thomas' chief financial officer.
“But clearly we're running out of time,” said Doug Hennes, St. Thomas’ vice president for intergovernmental relations. "We honestly thought we could sell properties, but life has gotten a lot more complicated,” he said, referring to the downturn in the housing market.
St. Thomas officials asked WSNAC members last month if the university could continue to use the maintenance garage until a new maintenance facility is built as part of the new Anderson Athletic complex that will be completed in the next couple years. However, WSNAC rejected that idea because of its potential for reopening the university’s special conditional use permit.
WSNAC members discussed redeveloping the three properties as rental housing, possibly for senior citizens, but that would also require reopening the 2004 agreement. Another idea is to allow the maintenance garage property to be redeveloped as a parking lot for a nearby business. Davanni's restaurant just to the cast had expressed an interest in the property a few years ago.
A few WSNAC members suggested knocking down the garage and selling it as a side yard for the adjacent house. Another suggestion was to demolish the maintenance garage and move a house onto the lot. St. Thomas owns all but one of the houses remaining in the two block campus expansion area and has plans to redevelop those properties with either classroom buildings or student housing.
