Star Tribune
Ideas to transform I-94 in Minneapolis and St. Paul compete for funds
But St. Paul leaders, including City Council Member Anika Bowie, who represents the area where a land bridge would be built, and State Rep. Samakab Hussein, DFL-St. Paul, said last week that they favor the land bridge.
Promoted by ReConnect Rondo, the land bridge would also be a catalyst for an African American cultural enterprise district, said Keith Baker, executive director of ReConnect Rondo. The bridge, estimated to cost $313 million, will spark extensive new development to fan out from it. The project, he said, could eventually tap into billions in federal infrastructure money allocated to Minnesota.
Baker, who worked at MnDOT for 18 years before moving to ReConnect Rondo, said a land bridge first emerged in 2011 as a way to help mitigate damage done to Rondo by the freeway. Study of a land bridge has garnered nearly $11 million in state funding so far.
“MnDOT ultimately is going to decide what it’s going to do with the corridor, right?” Baker said in a recent interview. “What I will say is we have influence over that because we’ve already been out of the gate right? We’ve already provided a very good foundation.”
And, Baker said, a land bridge has wide — and deep — community support in the old Rondo area of St. Paul.
Sharon Garth has lived near Central Village near I-94 in St. Paul for 50 years. The plan coming out of the ReConnect Rondo process “is the first time that I’ve seen something that is really going to shape this whole area of our community for the next 20, 30, 40 years,” she said.
Attorneys for Kortgard and Pillar Bank did not respond to requests for comment.
In an 11-page complaint filed Sept. 9, after using $7 million of the credit it’s owed to acquire the Lowry Apartments through a foreclosure sale, lender Colliers Funding argued Kortgard is liable for remaining debt associated with the building as a guarantor.
The lawsuit seeks more than $8 million plus interest, late charges, attorney fees and other costs. An attorney for the lender did not respond to requests for comments.
The court appointed a receiver to take over management of the Lowry Apartments last month after tenants complained that the building was unsafe and unsanitary. Other Madison Equities properties have lost major office tenants in recent months, and an attorney for the company warned large buildings could soon be boarded up and left without security.
Madison Equities did not pay the first half of this year’s property taxes on its downtown buildings. The company owes at least $1.7 million in taxes, fees and penalties, and at least $1.6 million more will be due in October.
Crockarell, who died in January, was a controversial figure in downtown St. Paul, engaging in a number of legal battles over decades with the city, other property owners, his tenants and his staff. As he amassed his portfolio, he grew a reputation for buying distressed buildings and offering below-market rents. Kortgard, an attorney, was a business partner.
The state Department of Employment and Economic Development has announced a $440,000 grant to Oak Park Heights that the city plans to begin cleaning city water of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) discovered in two city wells earlier this year.
The grant was one of six Community Energy Transition Grants awarded to communities with power plants that have closed or are scheduled to close due to the state’s conversion to 100% clean electricity by 2040.
The Allen S. King power plant will close in 2028, taking with it about a third of Oak Park Heights’ tax collections. Oak Park Heights Mayor Mary McComber said in a statement that the city will use the grant for a feasibility study and pre-design work to construct a new water treatment facility to remove PFAS contaminants from city water.
“We are grateful for DEED’s partnership and continued support,” McComber said. The six Community Energy Transition Grants announced this week totaled $5.21 million in funding for Oak Park Heights, Monticello, Red Wing, Cook County, Becker, and Sherburne County.
Superfund sites are investigated to determine the nature and extent of pollution. That has happened many times over the years at St. Regis, leading to the removal of some contaminated soil.
Some EPA studies and reports suggested the cleanup was done or nearing completion, but then the band’s own studies contradicted the EPA data. In the early 2000s, researchers with the University of Minnesota found evidence of a worsening situation that the EPA seemed to miss.
“It’s easy for a lot of people to say, ‘Well, they didn’t know any better when they were poisoning the water…when they were poisoning the land, they didn’t know any better.’ But they really did,” said Leo Anderson, who lived on a section of the Superfund site, as did his grandparents.
“One of the earliest memories I have of living on this site was that if you left a glass of water out overnight, in the morning there was an oil on top of it,” Anderson said.
“We had repeated stories of these companies putting freshly treated creosote wood right next to people’s homes,” he said. “They would pile it as close as they could to your home until you moved out and then they would continue working their way through the whole community. So this was not a mistake.”
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