Star Tribune
University of St. Thomas baseball, softball moving to Highland Bridge
The St. Paul City Council on Wednesday gave the green light to the University of St. Thomas baseball and softball teams to move to new homes 2 miles south of campus.
By a 6-0 vote, the council approved changes to the Highland Bridge master plan that will allow St. Thomas to build two new stadiums, an indoor practice facility and surface parking at the development’s southeast corner.
Phil Esten, St. Thomas’s athletics director and former baseball player at the St. Paul school, thanked council members and city staff and said the vote allows the university to begin fundraising in earnest.
“This is the result of months of really hard work,” Esten said. “Ultimately, it’s a really important part of the process. It allows us to move forward.”
Nearly a year ago, officials from St. Thomas and Ryan Cos., creators of St. Paul’s 122-acre Highland Bridge development, unveiled a broad plan to redevelop a vacant 13-acre tract just outside the development boundaries into new athletic facilities for the university’s softball and baseball teams.
At a community meeting in Highland Park, officials touted the benefits they say will come: economic development, environmental cleanup, community amenities and expanded park space. Dozens of neighbors that night said they had their doubts.
But over the ensuing months, City Council Member Chris Tolbert said St. Thomas officials worked to ease community concerns bout traffic and parking. Early on, St. Thomas officials had floated the idea of building a hockey arena there, but pulled back on that. Saying they’d make the fields available to youth and high school teams helped, Tolbert said.
“Obviously their proposal has evolved. They want to put the arena on campus and not not on the Highland site,” Tolbert said. “They’ve refined it. And the St. Thomas administration has done a really good job of going down and working with the neighbors to figure out how to be a true neighbor. And that goes a long way.”
The athletic facilities will be built on land owned by Canadian Pacific Railway. Save for the stadiums, Ryan officials had said it was doubtful anything else would be built there.
The St. Paul Port Authority will work to clean the site in preparation for the ballparks.
St. Thomas recently made an unprecedented jump from NCAA Division III athletics to Division I and officials have said they need to upgrade its facilities. It has proposed a joint basketball/hockey facility to be built on campus — at the former St. Paul Seminary. The conjoined baseball-softball stadiums at Highland Bridge will each hold 1,000 to 1,500 fans.
Highland Bridge’s ongoing transformation from the former Ford assembly plant has been dramatic, with the development of new parks, housing and a winding water feature. A new Lunds & Byerlys grocery store has opened and dozens of expensive rowhouses are in various stages of construction.
“I’m excited about what expansion of their athletic program will mean just for the vibrant upgrade to the neighborhood,” Tolbert said. “Division 1 baseball and Division 1 softball is going to be a great addition.”
After months of maintenance problems and safety concerns in downtown St. Paul’s Lowry Apartments, city officials condemned the building, forcing dozens of tenants to abruptly relocate to hotels this week.
On Monday afternoon, city staff responded to a plumbing leak in the 11-story building at 345 Wabasha St. N. Officials reported significant damage and signs of vandalism, including copper wire theft that left electrical systems exposed. The leak also raised concerns about mold.
To make repairs, the building’s water must be shut off — a move that would leave tenants without boiler heat and fire sprinklers, Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher said in a Tuesday email to state Rep. Maria Isa Pérez-Vega and City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represent the area.
After determining heat and water could not be restored quickly, Tincher wrote: “There was no other option than to conclude the building was not safe for residents to stay.”
Property manager Halverson and Blaiser Group (HBG) agreed to provide alternative housing for tenants for up to 30 days, Tincher said. City staff worked with Ramsey County’s Housing Stability team and Metro Transit to help 71 residents pack and move.
Before then, the building belonged to downtown St. Paul’s largest property owner, Madison Equities. After the January death of the company’s founder and longtime principal, Jim Crockarell, the dire state of the group’s real estate portfolio became apparent.
The Lowry Apartments, the sole property with a high concentration of low-income housing, quickly became the most troubled. Residents reported frequent break-ins, pest infestations, inoperable elevators and more, to no avail.
Star Tribune
Metro Transit allocated $12 million to boost security, cleanliness on Twin Cities light rail and buses
They will be soon. With more money to spend, Metro Transit plans to bring on 40 more this year. With their ranks growing, TRIP agents, clad in blue, have recently started covering the Metro C and D rapid transit lines between Brooklyn Center and downtown Minneapolis.
The big investment in public safety initiatives comes as Metro Transit is seeing an uptick in ridership that plunged dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been slow to recover. This year ridership has been a bright spot, the agency said.
Through October, the agency has provided 40.1 million rides, up 7% compared with the first 10 months of 2023. In September, the agency saw its highest monthly ridership in four years, averaging nearly 157,000 rides on weekdays, agency data shows.
At the same time, crime is down 8.4% during the first three quarters of 2024 compared to the same time period last year, according to Metro Transit Interim Police Chief Joe Dotseth. However, problems still persist.
On Nov. 29, Sharif Darryl Walker-El, Jr., 33, was fatally shot on a Green Line train in St. Paul. Just a week earlier, a woman was shot in the leg while on the train and taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Earlier this year, a robbery attempt on the Green Line in St. Paul left a passenger shot and wounded.
“Our officers are spending time on the system and sending a clear message to everyone: Crime will not be tolerated on transit,” Dotseth said. “And we will work to ensure those commit those crimes are held accountable.”
The ACLU of Minnesota has sued Otter Tail County, its sheriff and correctional officers at its jail, alleging unlawful punishment of a man known to them who has serious mental health issues.
Ramsey Kettle, 33, a member of White Earth Nation and lifelong Otter Tail County resident, was jailed in February on charges that were dropped two months later. The ACLU says that the sheriff’s office attempted to cover up the mistreatment, but a whistleblower working at the jail reported the abuse to the state. A 46-page lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court of Minnesota.
“Mr. Kettle was subjected to extreme, punitive treatment in violation of his constitutional rights and standards for basic human dignity,” the ACLU said in a statement. “Otter Tail County officers, with approval of the acting jail administrator, kept Mr. Kettle locked up in solitary confinement for days without food, water, or appropriate medical and mental health care.”
Otter Tail County spokesperson Shannon Terry said in an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune that “Due to the impending litigation, Otter Tail County has no comment or statement at this time.” Terry did confirm that Kettle was released from custody April 24, when the charges were dropped.
Kettle was immediately placed in solitary confinement after he arrived at the jail Feb. 9, the lawsuit says. Jail staff didn’t assess Kettle’s poor mental health, which the ACLU says was well-documented and known to officers. The ACLU says Kettle “exhibited increasing signs of physical and mental distress” and officers allegedly “laughed at him, mocked him, and left him to suffer.”
Kettle had been booked at the jail multiple times before. In March 2022, he was convicted of making terroristic threats and sentenced to two years. On the day he was scheduled to be released from Rush City Correctional Facility after serving his full sentence, he was charged in Otter Tail with four counts of aggravated witness tampering stemming from the conviction.
“Rather than going home on February 9, 2024, as he had anticipated for nearly two years, he was transferred to Otter Tail County Jail to await trial on these new charges. The new charges were unfounded and intended solely to keep Mr. Kettle incarcerated,” the lawsuit states.
District Judge Johnathan Judd dismissed the charges as lacking foundation.
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