There is lots of history in the row of buildings that sit on the bluff between downtown St. Paul and the Mississippi River.
There’s
the former home of West Publishing, which marks the place where a
company with national, even global, reach grew up before relocating to
Eagan.
And then there’s the old Ramsey County detention
center, which marks an era when governments thought nothing of placing
workaday facilities on land that boasts multi-million dollar views.
“I
thought the jail was a hotel when I came here for graduate school,”
recalled County Commissioner Rafael Ortega on Friday. County officials
brought back representatives of both of those story lines to commemorate
the start of a massive demolition and clean-up project they hope will
spur even more redevelopment in downtown St. Paul.
West
moved out of its building in 1991, and the complex became county offices
until the last workers moved to other facilities last August. The jail,
built in 1979, was closed in 2003.
A total of seven
buildings, dating from 1886 to 1979, will be demolished over the next 13
months at a cost of $13.5 million. (Of that, $9 million is to construct
a concrete retaining wall up to two feet thick that will be secured to
the bluff with rock bolts.) Once the project is completed, the county
hopes that a developer or developers will buy the 3.88 acres of
bluffside for uses ranging from residential and hotel to commercial. If
they do, they will have panoramic views of the river.
MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan
Fane Opperman
“It’s
all about the view,” said county commission chair Jim McDonough. A
previous redevelopment deal fell victim to the Great Recession. The
county commission decided to move ahead with a plan to reduce the risk
for future developers by doing the demolition with county funds. It
hopes to recover the money spent to ready the site for development when
the parcels are sold. And it will end up with land that is on the
property tax rolls for the first time in two decades.
“We see this site as part of a catalytic environment to making St. Paul a great city again,” Ortega said.
Louis
Jambois, president of the St. Paul Port Authority, called the site on
Kellogg Boulevard important in reconnecting downtown to the river.
Officials looked at offering the buildings for reuse but said
“developers were not enamored with the buildings that are here.”
In
an office overlooking the river where their father Dwight served as
president of West Publishing, Vance and Fane Opperman recalled going to
work with him in what they described as a joyful workplace.
“I
was a West kid,” Fane said. “Vance and I got that great Midwest work
ethic, but with a twist — that it was a joy to work.” Vance, who was 9
when he first visited the West offices, remembered it being a paradise
for a young boy.
MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan
Vance Opperman
“Secret
floors and great big clanky machines,” he remembered. “You’ve got
rails, you’ve got locomotives, I thought this was really neat.” He said
the company moved its entire operation to an existing facility in Eagan
because modern manufacturing plants need to be built horizontally, not
vertically, as it was downtown. He said the board fended off bids from
other states to keep in in Minnesota and close enough for current
employees to stay with the company.
Thomson Reuters bought the legal publishing company in 1996 for $3.4 billion. Dwight died in 2013.
Demolition
bids came in higher than the $11.5 million in bonds already approved by
the county commissioners. James Homolka, the project manager for the
county, said the bid environment for construction isn’t very good for
governments because there is so much construction activity. Ortega said
the county will transfer money from other capital projects that are
under budget, and the project will move ahead as planned.
