The Saint Paul Condo Blog

Rendering courtesy of Brian Gorecki - Real Estate Consultants LLC

The Penfield folks had an open house to comment on the new development last night and it looks like things are still moving forward.  The Hyatt Hotel that was once rumored to be part of the development has fallen out, but Lund's is still hanging in there (Yeah!).  The open house was specifically to get comments on the reuse of the old Public Safety Building.  Since the project is seeking Federal loan backing through HUD, HUD wants to make sure the public at large is OK with a majority of the old building being demolished and just the facade remaining.

I for one an completely happy with just keeping the facade, however I would have liked to see the facade along Minnesota extend beyond the one "bay" as they have it now, but I don't want that to stand in the way of getting a grocery store in downtown.  If the Penfield doesn't happen, either does Lund's as the two projects are intertwined as one.

If you want to see that this project happens, make sure to send in your comments supporting the proposed new use of the public safety building to the contact listed below by July 20th.  We don't have much time and we need to get as many positive comments as possible to get the approval!

Rachel Coleman
Project Manager
U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development
920 2nd Avenue South, Suite 1300
Minneapolis, MN  55402
Rachel.L.Coleman@hud.gov

As a side note, as you can tell from the rendering, the Penfield itself is not nearly as grand as the condo tower that was once proposed.  As it sits, it will house about 216 market rate apartments from $900 to $2100 a month.  The tower is about 10 stories tall, which should be just shy of reaching the height of the DHS building across the street.