University of St. Thomas seeks to build up properties along Summit, Cretin and Grand avenues
- St. Thomas University faces challenges in expanding parking and housing on campus due to a 2004 conditional-use permit agreement with neighborhood residents.
Homeowners living near the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul have long asked their academic neighbor to provide more parking on campus, especially in light of the recent construction of a new Division I hockey and basketball arena drawing fans by the thousands.
Officials with the state's largest private university have said they'd love to comply, and they even have a site or two in mind — such as the Anderson Parking Facility at Grand and Cretin avenues. However, a binding agreement hammered out with residents more than 20 years ago limits building heights, which would prevent them from adding two stories at Anderson Parking without eliminating the building's rooftop observatory.
Along a similar vein, students on campus have pined for more retail spaces to visit within walking distance of campus beyond a Davanni's Pizza on Grand Avenue. St. Thomas officials pointing to the example of a more vibrant stretch of Grand bisecting Macalester College have said they have ideas that could help them facilitate just that — if only the university's 2004 conditional-use permit agreement with the city didn't require large front lot setbacks.
"If they could add dorm buildings with retail spaces on the ground level like shops and cafes, I think the neighborhood wants those things," said Tim Flanigan, a neighborhood resident active in multiple community groups.
In the fall of 2021, St. Thomas moved all of its first-year and second-year students on campus, in keeping with neighborhood demands, but it's run out of room to build new dorms for juniors and seniors, who are effectively pushed off campus. Again, the 2004 conditional-use permit adds barriers that could hinder reconfigured residences along Grand Avenue, and it expressly prohibits housing for first-year and second-year students on the blocks in question.
"We don't really have a lot of commuter students anymore," said Amy McDonough, chief of staff to university President Rob Vischer. "You have to live on campus your first two years. The neighbors love that. They don't want sophomores living in the neighborhood. That's a big change compared to what at the time people thought would happen. We still have students who want to live on campus that we can't accommodate."
Again and again, according to university officials, St. Thomas — a Catholic university that dates to 1885 — remains beholden to outdated conditional-use permits crafted for three different sections of the St. Paul campus in 1990, 1995 and 2004, even when they conflict with the preferences of today's neighboring homeowners, the city council and the city's long-term growth strategies.
With the north and south campuses on either side of Summit Avenue fully developed, they're hoping to be able to reopen the 2004 "CUP" and update it with zoning and building agreements more reflective of modern interests for a burgeoning "mid-campus."
'Mid-campus' could tear down six homes along Summit Avenue
Those plans would focus on what the 2004 CUP describes as two "east" and "west" blocks on either side of Finn Street, running between Summit and Grand avenues from Cleveland to Cretin avenues. The university has gradually come to acquire all of the properties within those two blocks, including six houses toward the southeast corner of Summit and Cretin.
St. Thomas hopes to someday replace those six aging single-family homes along the Summit Avenue historic district with academic buildings, but the 2004 permit requires "mansion-style" housing there. Building mansions is a requirement St. Thomas officials call well outside their bailiwick, and far outside of the city's priorities.
"The conditions that were envisioned in 2004 when the CUP was developed are no longer the conditions for today's needs," said Jim Brummer, the university's vice president for facilities management. "It is outdated."
University officials said vacating Finn Street would eliminate a roadway that currently separates the two university-owned blocks on the mid-campus, providing opportunities for pedestrian safety and a future quad that mirrors the walkable character of quads on the north and south campuses.
Flanigan, who is active in the Union Park District Council, the West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Committee and other groups, said if the university is open to "lean in" more and help with concerns like parking and housing teardowns, there's an appetite in the neighborhood to compromise in certain areas.
The Summit Avenue homes, for instance, are situated in a historic district, but the structures themselves are not designated as major contributors to the district.
"What I've told them specifically is to think about creative situations," Flanigan said. "Is there a way to save the homes, maybe not right where they exist, but to offer them up to a nonprofit that is looking to house people in St. Paul? Partner with the Rondo Community Land Trust. Move it, put it on a new foundation and move in a family that needs it, so you're not just demolishing new housing stock."
Complicating matters, many of the city planning officials who have tracked the particulars of those decades-old agreements have retired or are soon likely to move on, if they haven't already, as have the university officials and some of the homeowners involved in the decades-old discussions that begot them. Some in City Hall have even suggested combining the 1990-2004 conditional-use permits into one governing plan.
Even some occasional critics of the university acknowledge that new student housing could take pressure off the surrounding neighborhood, where residents have complained of private developers tearing down single-family homes to build larger student rental properties closer to the lot lines, filling up yards and eliminating greenspace.
John Kingrey, a retired lobbyist who sits on the board of the Summit Avenue Residential Preservation Association, said exactly where new residence halls may land on campus remains a point for discussion, but he's grown tired of seeing single-family homes leveled for private rentals on Selby, Cretin, Cleveland and Princeton streets. Many Macalester-Groveland residents, he said, would welcome the university's help in preventing future housing tear-downs.
"When it was a single-family home, it was one or two people, maybe a couple kids, and now it's a duplex with 12 people," said Kingrey, who likens the private development to private dorms. "It prevents first-time homeowners from moving into the area."
The university, on the other hand, has a positive reputation for building aesthetically pleasing buildings intended to last another century, he said.
Bad blood from decades past
Still, the prospect of reopening the 2004 agreement, even within campus boundaries, is likely to give some neighborhood critics pause, as will other aspects of the university's wish-list, which is still largely conceptual.
Kingrey, who lives on Fairmount Avenue, has been involved in permit parking discussions in the area almost since the day he had to drop his wife and newborn daughter home from the hospital and then drive around looking for a parking spot.
That was 36 years ago, and since then, the university has been the source of some bruising discussions, not the least of which were difficult negotiations over the 2004 agreement. Relations have improved over the past decade, but there's been some hard feelings in the neighborhood around the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena, which was constructed despite multiple legal efforts by a coalition of residents to block it and require more environmental study.
Kingrey is SARPA's representative to the West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Committee, a homeowners group that St. Thomas considers an outdated sounding board for housing concerns unreflective of the surrounding neighborhoods, which officials say are better represented by the neighborhood community councils.
He also sits on the transportation committee of the Mac-Groveland Community Council. Kingrey acknowledges there are a number of different voices at the table, some of them making contradictory demands of the university, including a vocal group that will treat the 2004 agreement as gospel and argue to keep it unchanged.
"SARPA was involved in the original CUP in 2004," he said. "In every negotiation, you don't get everything you want. St. Thomas didn't get everything it wants, SARPA didn't get everything it wants. And I believe there's still some bad blood from it."
"There's an element of mistrust on all sides," he added. "To my way of thinking, I think there needs to be a discussion on the advisability of opening up the 2004 CUP, discussing some of the issues that St. Thomas wants to address, and then closing it back up, as opposed to eliminating it entirely."
University officials have emphasized that no formal plans have been presented to the city or the school's board of trustees, and any new construction could be five to 10 years away. All of their ideas sit within the footprint of their existing properties, and would not alter campus boundaries.
"We're thinking long term," said Jerome Benner, the university's director of neighborhood and community relations. "We don't have a timeline. We don't have an approved next project planned. … Housing is probably our logical next project, as well as parking."
The discussion over the 2004 conditional-use permit likely will rope in the St. Paul City Council and the mayor's office, as well as city planners. Mayor Kaohly Her has at different points in time lived by the north and south campuses, giving her a front-row seat to the university's growth.
Here's an overview of where and how St. Thomas hopes to grow in St. Paul:
Where has the university already added buildings?
The university completed construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena off Grand and Cretin avenues on the south campus last October, and the $110 million Schoenecker Center for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) learning on Summit Avenue before that. It's focusing for now on adding a 6,000-square-foot micro-grid annex to the Owens Science Hall, one of three micro-grids that will allow St. Thomas to eventually independently power the south campus.
Those projects took place within the existing footprint of the south campus, replacing the 1890s-era Cretin Hall dormitory, the 1960s-era McCarthy Gym and an 1890s-era service center, as well as a greenhouse.
University of St. Thomas major projects since 1997
The Iversen Center for Faith , an expansion of the 100-year-old Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas, opened on Cleveland Avenue in 2020. Since then, St. Thomas has opened two new residence halls and renovated three more, making room for all first- and second-year students to live on campus. A former law school building, the Summit Classroom Building, was renovated in 2022 for the school of nursing.
Does the university plan to grow its student population?
Would new buildings equate to larger enrollment?
The short answer is no, said McDonough. "Our goal is to remain steady at 10,000 students overall," she said, noting students are split between the St. Paul campus, the Minneapolis campus and a small campus in Rome, Italy. "Over the past 10 years, we've changed the make-up of those students, but we haven't grown enrollment at all."
University officials have called a growing emphasis on experiential learning space-intensive, and noted that recent construction on campus has allowed for bigger and better science and nursing labs, art galleries and a concrete testing facility, as well as on-campus dorms to accommodate existing undergrads.
"This is not a growth strategy," McDonough said. "This is about creating a better academic experience for students."
Where could St. Thomas add more parking and housing?
University officials foresee two logical areas where they could add parking on campus, both of which are complicated by the 2004 CUP. Adding two levels of parking to the existing Anderson Parking Facility at Cretin and Grand would violate the CUP, which limits maximum building heights to 40 feet to the tallest point, including parapets and rooftop mechanical structures. Unless the CUP is amended, the three-story parking facility would have to drop the St. Thomas Observatory from its rooftop.
Otherwise, officials could foresee adding new underground parking along Grand Avenue as they develop new or reconfigured housing options there.
Where might St. Thomas add new student housing?
The 2004 CUP expressly forbids new residence halls for first- or second-year students within the "east" and "west" blocks of the section of campus bisected by Finn Street, now referred to by university officials as the "mid-campus." University officials call that an unfortunate restriction, given that they've had to turn away some 400 to 500 juniors and seniors who would like to live on campus.
They foresee a time when the housing along Grand Avenue could be updated and reconfigured, shifting first-year and second-year students there. They also hope to lift some building height requirements.
"The conditional-use permit is very specific about which level of classman can live where," Benner said. "The existing housing on Grand Avenue has mostly upperclassmen, but that's not to say that couldn't shift if we were to remove that requirement. That requirement of where students can live, I think that's something we'd want to revisit."
Where could St. Thomas add new academic buildings?
The 2004 conditional-use permit requires the university to maintain six single-family homes it owns along Summit Avenue, between Cretin Avenue and Finn Street, which the document refers to as the "west block." University officials hope to lift that restriction and possibly replace the six houses with academic buildings to complement the Summit Classroom Building, formerly McNeely Hall, at Summit Avenue and Finn Street, which houses the School of Nursing.
Some of that housing looks aged and modest by Summit Avenue standards, according to university officials, and replacing it with "mansion-style" housing, as required by the 2004 CUP, is well outside its priorities.
The 2004 CUP states: "No new academic buildings shall be constructed on the west block. New construction shall be for residential uses only. St. Thomas shall agree to preserve six of the existing single-family houses on the Summit Ave. frontage not including the garages. Any residential structures built to replace any single-family homes which are moved or demolished shall be designed to look like single-family or 'mansion' style homes of diverse designs."
Greater retail presence along Grand Avenue?
Harvard University has Harvard Square. The University of Minnesota has the shops that line Washington Avenue and Dinkytown in Minneapolis. St. Thomas students have long complained that the closest retail to campus is a Davanni's Pizza and Hot Hoagies at Cleveland and Grand.
To facilitate more of a retail corridor on Grand, the university could fill in the parking lot at Grand and Cleveland, build its own retail spaces and lease them out, a complement to the new housing it hopes to construct on the block. The 2004 CUP requires 25-foot setbacks at the corner and for all the residential buildings along that block of Grand, a concern for officials who want to boost pedestrian-friendly allure.
"On Grand, how do you create that pedestrian scale, much like Macalester has now around Patagonia, for people walking by?" Benner said. Unlike St. Thomas, "Macalester has this cute commercial area that fits in as an extension of their campus."
The end of WSNAC?
As a result of the 2004 agreement, the university provides $10,000 in annual funding to each of three neighborhood organizations, or $30,000 total. Those groups are the Union Park District Council, the Macalester-Groveland Community Council and the West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Committee, which was created specifically to focus on housing issues around St. Thomas.
University officials have called WSNAC's scope too "hyper-local" and redundant to that of the two district councils, which are city-backed nonprofits that St. Thomas considers more reflective of overall neighborhood sentiments. A possible approach calls for the district councils to administer WSNAC themselves, filling its ranks from among their own membership, if not eliminating it entirely.
"Folks are kind of torn," said Flanigan, an active member of WSNAC and the Union Park District Council. "There is some agreement that UPDC, Mac-Groveland, those are the district councils for those areas of the city. But at the same time, WSNAC was created to bridge those gaps. There's pros and cons to it."
