Opponents of a Division 1 basketball and hockey stadium already far along in construction at the University of St. Thomas have again asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals for an injunction stopping building permits issued by the city of St. Paul.
The 68-page legal memorandum filed by neighborhood homeowners and attorney Daniel Kennedy calls the city’s recently-revised environmental assessment worksheet insufficient. The critics, under the name “Advocates for Responsible Development,” have demanded that work on the stadium pause for an elaborate review known as an Environmental Impact Statement, which the city has deemed unnecessary.
The Advocates for Responsible Development have maintained that the 5,000-spectator Lee and Penny Anderson Arena under construction near Grand and Cretin avenues could have far-reaching negatives consequences for the Mississippi River corridor and the homes along it, from delayed ambulance runs to potential mass poisonings from ice rink fumes to deadly impacts on bee colonies.
“The EAW and (its) update are defective in so many ways,” reads the legal request for injunctive relief. “Even after receiving direct
guidance from the court … the city failed to address the impacts of the phased action, including (greenhouse gases), and failed to provide specific, targeted, and certain mitigation measures.”
“With the university building as fast as it can … the environmental damage will be ongoing and some of it (e.g., destruction of bumble bee colonies, disturbance of the river bluff and erosion, building without incorporating safeguards for the toxic refrigerants) cannot reasonably be undone, even if the arena is later demolished.”
The Advocates for Responsible Development have filed multiple legal actions in an unsuccessful attempt to block construction over the past year.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled last July that the city’s previous EAW lacked specific measures aimed at addressing traffic congestion, parking and greenhouse gas emissions beyond passive approaches, such as monitoring traffic levels for two years. The court also noted that the lengthy worksheet failed to consider the cumulative impacts of construction projects on campus, including the new multi-disciplinary Schoenecker Center and the Center for Microgrid Research.
In response, the city published a newly updated EAW in October prepared by the St. Paul-based planning and engineering firm Kimley-Horn.
Also in July, the Advocates for Responsible Development requested an injunction to stop construction from continuing, which the courts denied.
Unless construction is paused, the stadium could open this fall.
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