St. Paul Real Estate

The Holidays are Coming

Chances are you heard about the upcoming holidays before reading this post. I think I took the picture in July.  They do give us an early warning.  I suspect that this year local merchants will not be disappointed by the lack of holiday spending because they probably have not set their expectations too high . . unless they are idiots or something.

At my house thanksgiving will be the same as it is every year. I do this thing where I cook a big turkey and I have my family over and maybe neighbors and friends.  I clean, then cook, then we all eat, then I clean, and I cook. I really do enjoy it. The wine helps.

For Christmas, yes we celebrate Christmas and I can even write about it because this is my blog and I make the rules.  This year we won't be spending as much during the holiday season.

The money we spend on gifts entertainment and holiday meals will be spent as close to home as possible because more of the money  will stay in the community, then it would if we shopped at the large chain stores.  Some will go for local taxes and some for wages too.  Local small businesses create jobs and they are essential to the economic health of our neighborhoods.

Help keep St. Paul in business this holiday season by spending money close to home.

If you are reading this anywhere but on the www.StPaulRealEstateBlog.comit is plagiarism plain and simple.

LRT

by G. Sax

"Historically, it takes at least seven to ten years to plan and implement a major transit investment."

That's from the 2030 Transit Master Study, 32 pages of maps, charts, and recommendations for the Twin Cities transportation system for the next 20 years.

Light reading for a Tuesday night and just the tip of what you can get at www.metrocouncil.org, www.regionalrail.org, and www.dot.state.mn.us. So I read a lot tonight because I'm able to multitask during The Real Housewives of Atlanta (NeNe's husband was a saint in the finale).

A lot of people are skeptical of light-rail transit (LRT) and the Central Corridor LRT line that will connect downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis. I'm pretty into it if we can get the show on the road. It's bad enough that we didn't get LRT going until 2004. It's bad enough that the Southwest Transitway Corridor to Eden Prairie has been stalled until only recently. It's bad enough that cities like Portland, Sacramento, and St. Louis are ahead of us. Last time I looked, none of those fine cities had four professional sports teams.

What gives? We have the population and we have the transportation bottlenecks to warrant additional options. That doesn't mean the traffic problems will be solved; we'll just be able to get out of them on a comfortable, modern ride.

The Washington, DC Metro is a model of mass transit done right, but the Beltway is still a parking lot. Chicago's "El" is both historic and convenient, but the Dan Ryan, the Stevenson, and the two presidents are all still a fresh hell. The BART system in the San Francisco Bay Area tunnels under the bay for goodness sake, and yet I still want to carve my eyeballs when at the 80/580 connect.

Oh, we will still have traffic. The action at 494 and 35W will still be as hot as the single lane at 394 to eastbound 94. There is no golden spike, but we still need more options. While we're at it, let's do the new transit project properly with stops at Hamline, Victoria, and Western. And, Rep. Alice Hausman, I think you're wrong about the routing of the Central Corridor behind the Capitol. That's the best place to put it. It's a fantastic, unobtrusive path to Robert Street. I like most of your policies, Alice, but I had to call you out on this one.

Anywow (as in "wow, did I really write that last paragraph?"), we're quite overdue for a decent dedicated-rail mass transit system. The great cities of the world have one, and I'd like to think that St. Paul ranks (with some help from its younger, taller brother).

The 16 and 94 bus lines are cool for getting back and forth between the downtowns, and I have fond, "Kiss Me on the Bus" by the Replacements memories of riding a lot of the local bus lines, yet we're not taking full advantage of our potential.

What's sad about all this is that we used to have one of the best streetcar lines anywhere. There's an interesting fiction book by Stanley Gordon West called Until They Bring the Streetcars Back. It tells a harrowing, St. Paul-based tale. It also serves as a love story to the streetcar lines.

Urban Decay

 

Am I the only one who is tired of looking at this? Located on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and West 7th Street.  I checked with my nieghbors to see if anyone even remembers how long it has looked this way and no one knows for sure.  We think it has been at least three years that this bill board has looked like a mess. If my house looked like this the city would make me repair it and I live on a side street, this thing is huge and located on a major street.  Why? Would you want to buy a home near this?

Bus Logic

by Erik Hare

This week, everything in Saint Paul changed.  People talked on the 74 bus in a way that they haven’t before, starting up conversations on with random strangers as we rumbled down Seventh Street and out Randolph.  Some of the people I’ve seen many times silently passing their own time turned their heads and said something to me about what’s going on in the world.

Was it the election?  That’s certainly a major pastime in the capitol city, and always has been.  But there’s been more to it lately than just one event.

The news is full of foreclosures and how we might deal with them as neighborhoods alongside reports of bailouts and protections built into the bigger system.  It’s also gotten colder out, finally sinking into the shivering cold of winter.  Mostly, however, I think we all got used to the idea of change, an event more powerful than any one politician or story in the news.

It doesn’t sound like much on the 74.  “These politicians, they’re gonna have to do something for the rest of us,” said one man I’ve silently seen many times.  Another offered a few profanities about what he actually expects is going to happen to us.  It wasn’t exactly hopeful, but at the same time there was hope.  We were all talking about it, regardless of race and class and all the other things that kept us in our seats by ourselves, focused straight ahead.  For once, it wasn’t just all about watching for the right stop.  We were enjoying the trip itself, all of us.

It’s not really that unusual to see people talking on the 74 bus.  Strangers have asked me a few things before, usually how to find their way to one place or another.  What’s new is that people are talking about how they really feel about things both in Saint Paul and the country as a whole. 

What does it mean?  To me, it’s just Saint Paul.  We’re a people that take care of ourselves as much as we can.  That means we express our opinions and have a sense of how everything comes together as a city.  We haven’t been as good at that in recent years as we slowly sunk into affluence.  Now, we’re worried.  More than worried, we’ve seen stuff in the general media that tells us we have a good reason to be worried about a number of things. 

In Saint Paul, worry means there’s work to do.  The first step is to start talking about what we need to do, and before that gets going we have to take some time to vent.  We might do that in community meetings or to a reporter, but some of it starts on the bus. I feel confident that we’re going to start getting our arms around some of the problems we have because, if nothing else, we’re talking. 

The 74 bus may not be the best place to gauge how the city is going, but I’ve seen all this during the last downturn in 1991.   It’s a good start.

Help Keep St. Paul Beautiful

The number of vacant homes in St. Paul has grown. There are now 2010 buildings, most of them are homes on the St. Paul registered vacant building list

No all vacant homes are on the list so no one really knows how many there are.

We need to keep an eye on the vacant homes in our own neighborhoods. If there is an vandalism to the home or if it is not properly secured don't hesitate to call the St. Paul police department at: 651-291-1111.

We have a law here in St. Paul about snow removal that applies to all properties no matter who owns them. We have 24 hours from the time it stops snowing to clear the sidewalks:

"Sec. 113.02. Snow and ice removal from sidewalks.
The owner or occupant of any building or lot abutting a public sidewalk is responsible for and shall remove
any accumulation of snow and/or ice from said public sidewalk within twenty-four (24) hours after the snow
and/or ice has ceased to fall, gather or accumulate.
(Ord. No. 17187, 11-27-84) "

If the snow is not shoveled there is a complaint process, it is online and oh so easy: City of St. Paul complaints. The same process can be used if the yard has an excessive amount of litter in it. Vacant homes are held to the same standards that the rest of us as home owners have to adhere to. 

There really is not any reason the side walks can't be shoveled.  Everyone needs to use them and a patch of snow or ice can cause life threatening injuries to some if they slip and fall. It really is up to all of us to keep the city beautiful, and safe too.

Swamp Me In

by G. Sax

Politics. It was one of the things suggested I not talk too much about on this blog. I happen to agree with this thought, since this isn't the St. Paul Politico Blog and especially since there are going to be plenty of reports bombarding your senses about the elections and politics in general on this, The Day After.

Massive media mouthiness—from the newspapers and TV stations, the radio talk shows and blogs, and even the cute little graphics surrounding Yahoo! and Google.

So let's switch gears today and discuss 1031 tax-deferred exchange.

Yeah, right.

Politics! I'll refrain from election coverage, because you've probably seen or heard (touched? smelled? tasted?) at least a dozen political stories today. No, I want to cover the electorate, because the electorate is us, and us is "a body of people entitled to vote"
(says m-w.com).

I took care of my entitlement early yesterday, making my first appearance at a polling station since a controversial school board vote in Novato, California, and my first visit to a St. Paul polling station since 1996 when I accidentally happened to be voting at the same place as Senator Paul Wellstone at the exact same time that Paul Wellstone was there to vote for himself in his re-election bid.

I met "Paul," as he introduced himself to me on that day, probably because I was holding a happy baby. The cameras clicked and clacked in a tight circle around us as he shook my little son's hand. I saw images from those cameras on CNN over and over again six years later, after he died in a plane crash. I was captured in electronic amber on Election Day.

I liked voting in 1996. I felt like I mattered, you know? And this year, I really, REALLY liked how it felt to vote. A warm smile greeted me from the young woman who got me started on convenient, same-day registration. A young couple with tats and pierces politely went about their civic duty in front of me, joking with each other like young lovers should.

A father congratulated his fresh-faced son on his first foray into manhood. A scraggly man smelling of booze by the dawn's early light was in and out before I could turn the ballot over. There was enough wheelchair power in my voting room to start an adapted sports franchise.

In a fine moment of clarity, I felt the completeness of our shared unique equality. I felt, in totality, a part of my electorate, my gas station, my hardware store, my coffee shop, my liquor store, my community in unity. St. Pauliwog! We shall grow and change together.

I Speak for the Trees

by Erik Hare

Our long, lingering fall is coming to an end in Saint Paul.  We are ready to say goodnight to our trees for the season by raking up the leaves in a flurry of sweat and dust.  This is a good time to think about how important they are to our city and how much they add to our lives.

The standard image of Saint Paul includes the tree-lined park that is Summit Avenue.  Those of us who live here know that these lines of leafy sentinels run through every neighborhood street as well, marking where we live more than anything else.  Directions to someone’s house will often include, “By the large Catalpa tree” or “Just past the enormous Cottonwood” that has probably been used as a marker for generations.  Every street is known by the trees along it.

This wasn’t always the case, however.  In the 1970s, Dutch Elm disease was a pandemic through Saint Paul.  Many streets had been planed with American Elms because they grew fast and tall.  The problem came when a single beetle-borne illness was able to leap from one to the next, leaving whole neighborhoods completely bare in no time flat.  Nothing could be done to stop it, either.  All that could be done was to solemnly take down the dead and dying and plan for the future.

The City Forester developed a plan to introduce many different species into the same flattened neighborhoods to develop the canopy that would spread over the next generation.  The idea is that diversity in trees would make the forest resilient just as diversity of people made the city strong.  They began planting Red Maples and Lindens and many other kind of trees according to a plan.  Citizens pitched in to buy the tree to go in front of their house, taking care to plant and water it with love.

The result is what you see both on the ground and from the air.  When you come in to the airport from the east, over Saint Paul, you can see the great urban forest stretching out beneath you.  It’s clear that we do not have trees in the city, but rather a city buried deep inside a forest.  A little planning and a lot of love made that happen.

As we turn towards winter the trees have lost their leaves.  The view isn’t as pretty as it is during the warmer months when the great canopy of so many different trees shades and enlivens Saint Paul.  It’s always a sad time, heavy with the damp weight of fall and the nostalgic smell of wood fires coming up chimneys.  But this is a time when we have a chance to appreciate what we have even though we have to tend to the chore of raking up the leaves. 

We’ll miss our trees, but we know they’ll come back.  We’ve worked very hard and put too much love into them for anything else to happen.  This great urban forest is what defines Saint Paul just as the individual species of the master plan defined each neighborhood.  Together, they are the city and the city is life.  We can’t wait to have them all back next spring.

I love Grand Avenue

Near the corner of Grand and Victoria, Axel's Bonfire Grill. Hence the neon sign with the flames. The other sign is for cafe Latte, try their chocolate cake sometime.  The Grand avenue area is a great example of a walkable neighborhood. It might be a great place to spend that extra hour gained when we set our clocks back one hour tonight.

The Grand Ole Creamery, not just for summer.  Have you ever tried their hot chocolate?

It was dark out when I took the picture, I know that doesn't explain why it is crooked but it does explain why it is dark.

A Bad neighbor

When I started this blog I had thought about writing a 'good neighbor' 'bad neighbor' column.  I never started it, but decided to give it a try today. 

The St. Paul Pioneer Press is today's bad neighbor.   For many years we had the paper delivered to our door but we stopped about a year ago because there are only two of us living here now and half the time the papers would go unread.  They take up a lot of room in the recycle bin.

We get much of our news through the internet and the nearest newspaper stand is half a block away so when we want a newspaper we get one. 

The folks at the newspaper keep calling our home.  We are on the do-no-call list, and we have repeatedly asked to be taken off of their list.  Yet they continue to call us, three to four times a month, with special offers for subscribing to the paper.  Our next step is to file a complaint because we can't stop the calls any other way, and the paper could be fined up to $10,000.

They also started delivering to our home a few weeks ago, and then they sent a bill for the papers they delivered.  I called and told them I didn't order the paper and would not pay the bill.   The reason I bring this up is because the same thing happened to my neighbors and to our son who lives at other address. In each case the home owner did not order the paper but it appeared and they they were billed for the paper.  Since it happened to all of us at the same time we have concluded that it was a ploy to sell papers.

I know the local newspapers are struggling because readership and advertising are down.  There have been layoffs and cut backs. That is how the business world is.  I am also working in an industry that is contracting but that does not give me the right to break the rules.  It doesn't work that way.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a bad neighbor and calling my home is not going to help their cause.  If you are having similar problems with the Pioneer Press you are not alone.

Two Years

by Erik Hare

This week marks my two year anniversary writing for Teresa here at St Paul Real Estate Blog.  I was very honored when she asked me to do this and I’ve done my best to live up to the honor.  I think this is a good time to look back and what I’ve done and explain what I think I’m here for.

Most of the time, I write about things that are happening in Saint Paul.  I happen to love this city in a way that is hard to explain.  Like anything difficult, the best way to get the idea across is often to talk around it, hoping that your audience will get the drift eventually.  If I do it right it’s a kind of poetry, putting the readers into the moment that caused me to think the way that I do.  I hope I’ve come at least close to that.

Saint Paul itself often needs a little bit of explaining for a large number of reasons.  This is a Midwestern town with deep Eastern roots.  People have a tendency to be pretty blunt, not in a hostile way but in the way your family might be over Thanksgiving Dinner.  Like a family, we all know each other and have expectations that have come from years of just being together.  It’s not something that comes together perfectly in a 600 word blog entry.

More importantly, many people who move here are told that this is the “Inner City”.  In a certain sense, that’s pure hogwash.  Yes, we have all the great things that come with urban life such as walkable neighborhoods, great amenities, and more than a few festivals.  But we simply do not have most of the scary things that are associated with a city such as anonymity, crime, and hopeless poverty.  There are a few problems just like anywhere, but this ain’t da Big City.  It’s Saint Paul, and it’s somewhere between being a small town and something much bigger.  I happen to think it’s just about perfect - and I want you all to know about it.

I’m a writer for a living, which means that you should expect a lot out of me.  I want to show you, not tell you, just what I mean.  This anniversary is my shot at telling you what I’ve been trying to show all this time:  Saint Paul is a great place.  Teresa isn’t just selling houses, she’s selling a way of life – you might want to check it out.

When you read a story I’ve written about the Como Footbridge or Chris & Rob’s or the Twin Cities Marathon or where our Catalpa trees come from, I’m trying to clue everyone in on something that often comes across as a big secret:  we have a pretty good life here.  Yes, the details are always important because why on earth should you believe me without them?  That’s what this is really about.

Blog entries can be a lot of fun, but it’s hard to say much in just a few words.  It’s best to pick your words carefully and be as sparing as possible.  But in the end, those very short stories should add up to a big story with one theme that ties them all together.  For me, it’s a simple one:  Saint Paul is a great place to live.  It’s great because we have cool people and great places and we really stay on top of problems before they get bad.  I’ve done my best to tell you about some things you may not read about anywhere else that should make that point obvious.  I hope I’ve lived up to that high standard.

Thanks for reading.  Without readers, there’s not much point to writing.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your being here!