Following years of litigation and debate, the demolition of the long-vacant public safety annex building at 10th and Robert streets in downtown St. Paul has finally been put out to bid by the city.
Its removal this spring could make room for a new park running at least two-thirds the length of the block, though city officials acknowledge that funding sources for the future Pedro Park remain undefined.
Nevertheless, officials with St. Paul Parks and Recreation and Aune Fernandez Landscape Architects unveiled three concept plans this week intended to guide the long-term development of Pedro Park, which would largely occupy the space where the five-story Pedro Luggage and Briefcase Center once stood.
The city last year identified some $500,000 to demolish the four-story public safety annex building, which likely would unfold between this March and May. Working with a citizens group, Parks and Rec went back to the drawing board and assembled three new concept plans for Pedro Park, each one nearly twice the size of the 2018 plan.
“They all look really good,” said downtown resident Josiah Hakala, after reviewing plans on Monday and finding his eye drawn toward a potential water feature at 10th and Robert streets, as well as a diagonal walking path. “I kind of like the overall aesthetic of Concept B — it activates the northeast corner better than the other ones.”
The three plans, presented for public feedback Monday at an open house on Wabasha Street, each span about two-thirds of the block. The space is bounded by the Union Gospel Mission Child Development Center at Ninth and Robert streets, as well as a strip of privately-owned parking that runs along Minnesota Street. Following demolition of the public safety annex building this spring, the city would seek to install some interim improvements, which have yet to be finalized but could include lighting and security elements, short sections of walkway, some green space, trees and turf or bee lawn.
The three concept plans
In the long term, each concept plan envisions maintaining the lower portions of the public safety annex building as retaining walls and filling in the existing recessed park space to create a gentler, graded slope that still drops at least three feet below 10th Street. To varying degrees, each plan also includes a water feature, a covered but otherwise non-enclosed shelter, central greenspace, public art, a bee lawn, table seating, a children’s play area and a sizable dog run.
Concept A: Original plan, but larger, with a prominent water feature
Concept A extends plans unveiled in 2018 further south toward Minnesota Street but otherwise keeps the same general themes in a larger envelope.
An entrance off 10th Street would allow access to a streetscape shelter — the largest shelter in the three designs — featuring an interior water feature, as well as steps that lead down to a larger outdoor fountain or splash pad, the most prominent water feature in the three concept plans. The park would be situated in a rectangular layout, with the less formal amenities — such as the children’s play area and dog run — situated toward the farthest ends as visitors progress into the park, creating something of a backyard feel at its lower edges.
Concept B: Diagonal pass-through
Concept B features a diagonal pass-through, or curved walkway arcing around the wedge-shaped green from 10th and Minnesota streets to a point halfway down the block along Robert Street. A shelter, smaller than the one in Concept A, would be tucked away toward Minnesota Street, and the fountain or splash pad water feature would be moved up toward the corner of 10th and Robert. Preliminary designs envision potential space for pocket gardens and a pickleball court, as well as larger space than in Concept A for the children’s play area and dog run.
Concept C: Ellipse
Concept C creates an ellipse, or rounded, football-shaped park with amenities squaring off the corners. A large shelter similar to that in Concept A would be situated along 10th Street to bolster the streetscape, with a long arbor opposite the shelter to provide shade at the southern edge of the park. In addition to the northwest-southeast link between the shelter and arbor, a stairway along Robert Street would be designed to pull people into the park from both directions. Public art would gain special prominence at the corner of 10th and Robert streets, and the children’s area and pet play areas would be located in the same area as in Concept A but run larger in size. A pickleball court could be introduced along 10th Street.
Open house
On Monday, downtown residents visiting the open house in the Osborn 370 building at 370 Wabasha St. seemed to gravitate mostly toward Concept B, which offers the clearest path from Minnesota to Robert streets without disrupting turf or park activities.
“It will become more natural in terms of where people are walking,” said Kathleen O’Neill, a resident of the Penfield, debating the pros and cons of each option while studying posterboard displays.
“It’s an interesting shape,” added Julie Prince, a downtown resident who chaired the most recent working group dedicated to park planning.
History
The Pedro family donated its luggage store to the city in 2009 with the expectation that the city would build a two-acre park, or something close to that, within five years. The building was demolished in 2011, but little more than a temporary garden has ever been planted on the recessed lot.
Neighborhood efforts to force the city to tear down the adjoining 1920s-era public safety annex building seemed to falter in 2018 when the St. Paul City Council voted 5-2 to allow a Minneapolis developer — the Ackerberg Group — to redevelop the structure for office uses. The building sale would have helped fund a $4 million, quarter-block park, but opponents were quick to label the scaled-down plans for Pedro Park akin to a future office lawn.
Then “the former plans for the park fell apart,” Prince said.
Neighborhood residents took their battle to court and lost, but by the time their efforts to block the building sale to Ackerberg fell short before the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the developer had already pulled out of the project, blaming the pandemic-driven downturn in office rentals. With an eye toward a larger Pedro Park, the St. Paul City Council authorized demolition funds for the public safety annex building last October.
The current project website can be found at: https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation/design-construction/current-projects/pedro-park
952-283-1654
