St. Paul Real Estate

Retail

By Erik Hare

There’s been a lot of press about residential real estate, both on the upside and the downside.  There’s a great deal of interest in where people live, and it’s only natural – we all have to live somewhere.  But this isn’t the only kind of real estate there is.  Retail establishments, particularly small spaces that are logically best suited for entrepreneurs, are taking it much harder.

Saint Paul is not much different.  A concerted effort has filled many of the spaces along the skyway level, creating a bustle of activity during the day.  It’s been a wonderful transformation that’s happened even as the rest of the economy took a dive.  The problem comes at the street level, where things become much more difficult.

A good example of the street retail is undergoing can be seen around Mears Park in Lowertown.  Two new bars have opened up on the north side of the park in the last two years, The Bulldog and most recently Barrio.  On the south side, things have been a little more difficult for the Strauss building (pictured).

The renovation was finished in 2003, just in time for the tail end of the market boom.  With 3 floors of apartments, the Strauss building quickly filled up with residents who wanted to be right in the heart of the city and the wonderful amenities.  The first floor was designated retail, and it has yet to fill up.  Most of it has never even had a client in all this time. 

What’s wrong with the Strauss Building?  Absolutely nothing, especially if you ask the renters.  In fact, the columns topped by delicate arches and filled with wide windows facing Sibley Street are architectural treasures.  It’s a perfect space for any number of things, including a fancy restaurant or a specialty retail outlet.  There just isn’t a lot of demand for these sorts of things, so the space has been idle.  Someday, someone will snap it up and create a Saint Paul institution.  But while it’s always been difficult to get a loan for a boutique retail operation, right now it’s nearly impossible.  It’s unlikely that anything will happen soon.

So the Strauss Building waits for someone with the capital it takes to do something that makes the city proud.  It’s nearly impossible to walk past it and not come up with a few plans for this magnificent space, but dreams take a lot of cash to become a reality.  The current economic situation doesn’t make it likely that retail spaces, even those as amazing as the Strauss Building, will be filled up soon.  Even though the apartments were a huge hit, the retail struggles.

The new places across Mears Park give us hope that the wonderful Strauss Building will find its retail tenants soon.  As Lowertown continues to grow and develop, there will be more and more demand.  But it’s still terribly sad to see such a building be left empty in this market, even though retail space isn’t first on everyone’s mind.  Someday this will all change, but in this climate it’s hard to see it happening soon enough, especially for us dreamers walking by.

Downtown St. Paul closed on July 3rd

I went downtown yesterday and discovered that it was closed.  The shops had signs on them indicating that they are closed until Monday. The streets were empty during the morning rush hour, and there was an eerie silence.

The photo is of the Landmark Center, the side that no one ever photographs.

Fireworks and July 4th

It is Friday and Fridays are for fun. Since it is July 3rd there is really only one thing to write about and that is July 4th. We get started a little early with the fireworks here in St. Paul, MN, and I got this kind of OKish shot last night.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the very best July 4th fireworks can be found at the Taste of Minnesota. They can be seen from several places along the river, on the bridges and from downtown. This shot was taken from the Smith Avenue High Bridge because I didn't feel like walking far.

Taking photos of fireworks isn't easy and I don't get much practice. I'll call this a warm up shot. The people on the bridge watching the fireworks are always friendly and ask some interesting questions.  Some will notice my camera and ask me if I am taking pictures. Others will ask me after the fireworks if I took any pictures. Occasionally someone will ask if the black object I am carrying is a camera . . honest I am not making that up.

There is much more to the taste of minnesota than fireworks. Like FOOD and rides and more.  Worth a visit if you are staying around town this weekend.  The taste is not the only game in town.  There are other things to do this holiday weekend for those of us that are having "staycations"  There is a staycation web site and they have a list of events. 

Have a great weekend and please don't blow your self up or burn down the house with a firecracker, cherry bomb or bottle rocket.  Every year people get hurt and property gets damaged, this year will be no exception.They are illegal in St. Paul but there doesn't seem to be any way to enforce the law so if you do play with fireworks you probably won't get a ticket.

Is the City web site a good source?

I remember when the City of St. Paul first started a web site. It was indeed cutting edge. They have made some changes over the years.  The site is a great source for city meeting minutes and agendas and for keeping up-to-date on current issues and they even have the city complaint department online now.

The site is missing a lot of information too. There isn't any useful information about permit parking, or the secret parking meter card and there are other things missing from the site that city residents need to know. The site is also hard to navigate and search and there are a lot of PDF's that have to be opened.   

I bring this up becasue I get calls because of this blog and people think I know city stuff.  I don't but my blog is searchable and it does have information on it that is missing from the city web site.  People ask questions and I write a post about it. Maybe the city should do something like that, or they could ask a Realtor what kind of information should be on the site.  We get asked questions about the city from buyers and sellers all the time.   

Home

by G. Sax

I was a renter until the age of 37. According to the National Association of REALTORS® and other surveys, that's fairly old to become a homeowner. Most new owners come in below 30. Power to 'em. At 29, I was flopping around in one of the most expensive cities in the nation at the most expensive time in our nation's residential real estate history. A 2-bedroom, 2-bath (2 BR, 2 ba) house at $625,000 wasn't a good option.

So I held my wallet and waited it out and eventually moved back to the country's middlemarch and bought a decent 5 BR, 2 ba for well under $200,000. Life is good for me as a homeowner. Fixed rate. Solid neighbors. Comfortable mortgage payments.

You can have this, too, if you consider the great city of St. Paul. There are good people who can help you attain this dream. Maybe you can find them if you click somewhere near these words.

But this is not an ad for REALTORS® or for St. Paul or even for homeownership, although all of these things are worthwhile and worth promotion.

No, this post is for the concept of "home." Even when I was renting, I often felt at home in the place where I slept each night. But I'm more settled now, and I intend to bask in the glow of homeownership for a good many years.

I feel particularly reflective on where I've been and how I got here this week because we have a Big American Holiday coming up: Independence Day. The only summer holiday draws people out of their homes and into yon neighborhoods and townships afar. Minnesotans notoriously travel north, but even in other parts of the country the kids are packed up and the minivans are driven here and there to experience something other than...home.

My wife is in California and I miss her. I thought of making an airplane dash to her this week. I have great friends in Milwaukee, and I thought of making an automobile dash to them this week. And then I took a deep breath and I looked around my house and yard and decided to do something I can't say that I've ever done. I'm going to stay put this year. I'm going to stay home.

Last year at this time, I had six guests in the heat of July. This year, it's just me and my dogs. I've said all of a dozen words in the past couple of days while hanging around my home. It's new and different and borderline un-American. I pay no mind to that line of thinking. Because I'm home. And, damn, home feels better than it ever has before.

Find yours. Live it. Live in it. Love it. Take the time to not take home for granted.

Happy 4th.

Slow Trains

There is a city ordinance that requires trains to go slowly.  I can't find it on the city web site but as I recall they can't go any faster than about 10 miles an hour. I guess that cuts down on noise.  I know they are not supposed to toot their horns at the crossings either. There is a downside to the slow trains. The intersection of Chestnut street and Shepard road has been a challenge for years.  When a train comes through no one goes anywhere for a long time.  The trains are long and slow.

On Saturday I was walking near the science museum and waited for a very long train.  When there were about five cars left to cross the tracks it just stopped.  I guess we like things slow here in St. Paul.It seems to me that we were promised a pedestrian bridge but it never materialized.  There will never be any kind of a bridge over the tracks for cars because the immediate neighbors don't want one. Shepard Road and Chestnut would be a great place for a hot dog vendor to hang out.

Renting out the condo

We still have plenty of townhouses and condos on the market in St. Paul, and they are still selling at a slower pace than all other types of single family home.  On average they take 36% longer to sell.

Some of the sellers have given up for now and are renting their units, others try to rent them out while they are on the market.  As a Realtor who has been through this more than a few times there are some pitfalls to having renters in the unit while it is on the market.

1.  There is the messy renter, the place is never in good shape for showings.

2.  The uncooperative renter.  There is never a good time to show the place.  I understand this and I know I wouldn't want to pay rent and then have to have people traipsing through the place and disturbing my day.

3.  The surly renter.  I won't even explain that one, but sometimes renters get involved when there are people seeing the home and they say all sorts of things.

The up side to renting out a condo is that the seller has a way of making the mortgage payment and can move on and wait awhile to sell it.

There is another issue with renting out condos or townhouses and that is that in some buildings and developments the percentage of owner occupied units is so low that units no longer qualify for FHA financing.  This is becoming a big problem  These days FHA financing is very popular for first time home buyers and units that can not be financed through FHA are hard to sell.
There are no easy answers and it is a vicious circle. Would be sellers end up renting because it takes so long to sell or they owe more on the unit than they can get for it, and can not afford to sell it.  Rented units are harder to sell and your rental unit may be killing your neighbors chance of selling their unit to the growing number of buyers who are using FHA.  

The Street - Where You Live

By Erik Hare

You drive on the street in front of your house every day, but how often have you looked at it?  Perhaps on a sticky hot day a crew comes through, spreading the scent of tar low and wide across the street.  Beyond those days, you might rarely the street where you live anywhere near as much though as the people and houses that live along it. No matter what, though, your taxes paid for what the Public Works Department has given you.  What did you get?

Most of the streets in Saint Paul are not, technically “paved”.  That term refers to streets that have been set with asphalt curb to curb, and in Saint Paul that only happens on major streets (on the left in the composite picture).  The neighborhood streets are done with “chip and seal”, or crushed rock that has some oil applied to keep it together (on the right).  You can see in the picture that on the right it is mostly rock but on the left it is mostly not-rock – pavement is mostly tar, not stone.  What’s the difference?

It all goes back to the first paved streets in about 1820.  John McAdam discovered that if you seal the water from below a road, you didn’t have frost heaving and other things that break up the surface.  His method of sealing the road was to put down sharp crushed rock that was compressed to make a “macadam” surface.  It worked.  Our neighborhood streets are a simple variation on macadam where the stone is put down, compressed by cars running over it for a few days, and then sprayed with an oil that seals it all up. 

If you ran this kind of surface with tar, you’d have a “tarmac”.  That’s what many of the main roads are in Saint Paul, and what is pictured.  You can also make a surface that is as smooth as glass with nothing but tar, but it doesn’t wear as well as a tarmac paving.  Our Public Works Department prefers the tarmac type of paving just for the durability. Since they spend $28 million a year on "right  of way maintenance", every small savings adds up. 

There are problems with the “chip and seal” or sealed macadam kind of paving we use on our neighborhood streets.  For one thing, they do require maintenance every few years to keep cracks like the one I pictured from forming.  When cracks do develop, they often widen and spread much quicker, as you can see in the composite photo.  But this kind of surface is still much cheaper in a place where there isn’t a ton of traffic forcing high maintenance, so it’s the choice for our neighborhood streets.

The way our streets are made is easy to ignore, if you choose to.  That’s by design.  We have a good Public Works Department that does its best to stay on top of things.  It’s good to know what they are up to if, for no other reason, than we’re paying for it.  I think we’re getting a pretty good deal in Saint Paul, too.