St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s administration last Thursday alerted members of the St. Paul City Council that he’d be releasing big concept drawings for four key development opportunities in downtown St. Paul, including the vacant Macy’s Department Store.
When was the release to be held? The very next day. Planners and tourism folks applauded the drawings, and folks on the street had mixed reaction, but no council members showed up.
It turns out the council members had other appointments, and less than 24 hours notice wasn’t enough time to cancel. Or maybe they were just miffed at having to read about the plans in the newspaper before seeing the drawings themselves.
They’re pointing out that none of those projects are likely to get off the ground without input from the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority (which is basically the seven members of the city council).
Council members have responded with varying degrees of annoyance to the perceived snub, except for Dave Thune, who represents downtown, and kind of liked what he saw.
Speaking of the mayor’s office seemingly getting ahead of itself on big development projects, that’s happened before, most recently with the Dorothy Day project (though that one mostly garnered City Council support). Then again, the mayor’s development plans sometimes come together with or without full buy-in from the city council. The Lofts at Farmers Market is case in point, and so is the Penfield.