Workers at a Starbucks coffee shop on West Seventh Street in St. Paul and another in Wayzata have chosen to unionize and join Starbucks Workers United, which has led a coast-to-coast labor strike since Nov. 13.

Both locations remained open Monday. Workers and shift supervisors had not chosen to join the strike over pay and labor practices, which has roped in some 3,800 baristas at more than 180 stores in 130 cities.

The two stores are the 15th and 16th Starbucks in Minnesota — and the 11th and 12th in the Twin Cities — to see their baristas join the worker’s union, which is demanding finalization of its first national labor contract for nearly 11,000 unionized baristas at 560 locations.

Workers at the West Seventh and Davern location in St. Paul voted 18-1 last Wednesday to join the labor union, and baristas at the Wayzata Boulevard and County Road 101 shop voted 11-5 on Thursday to do the same, according to the union.

Under the title “Red Cup Rebellion,” the labor union has demanded better hours to improve staffing, higher take-home pay and the resolution of complaints surrounding alleged unfair labor practices.

The Seattle-based coffeehouse giant has maintained that the company offers the best wages and benefits package in retail. Negotiations broke off after elected union delegates rejected a contract offer in April.

In the Twin Cities, the strike has included workers at a St. Anthony Starbucks at 3704 Silverlake Road, which unionized in 2022, as well as one in Chanhassen at 190 Lake Drive, which unionized a year ago.

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Baristas at a location on Snelling Avenue by Macalester College also unionized in 2022, but the coffeehouse was permanently closed this year when Starbucks shuttered some 520 stores nationwide.

In downtown St. Paul, the online auction of the 25-story U.S. Bank Center that was scheduled to begin Monday has again been delayed, this time to mid-January.

The skyway-connected property, located at 101 E. Fifth St., faces the Green Line light rail corridor’s Central Station and was recently listed as 26% occupied. It fell into foreclosure a year ago, and was initially listed to be up for auction Nov. 10 through Nov. 12.

“Some of the title work and some of the other things weren’t ready,” explained John McCarthy, a listing broker with Colliers International, on Monday. “We had to have seven days for all bidders to look at it. It’s just been so challenging with it being a foreclosed property. … It’s been really challenging to get the property on the market.”

The office tower, previously owned by Madison Equities, has been put up for auction by First Interstate Bank, with a minimum advertised starting bid of $1 million. The minimum bid could yet be lowered closer to the auction date, McCarthy said.

He said he was happy to see 170 interested parties had signed non-disclosure agreements, a first step toward reviewing tenant information and other details in an online data room. McCarthy said “five or six” parties had signed up to be live bidders, which requires proof of funds. That number could still grow by Jan. 12.

Meanwhile, near Mears Park, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office has posted notice it is seizing another former Madison Equities property, the vacant Park Square Court building at 400 Sibley St., on behalf of a lender.

In October 2024, Merchants Bank filed legal action against Rosemary A. Kortgard, widow of former Madison Equities principal James Crockarell, as well as the Park Square Court Building LLC, the Grotto Group and Momentum Design Group LLC, over two unpaid loans totaling $5.7 million and $2.7 million in principal.

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The foreclosure was approved by the courts in February. In November, attorneys for the bank requested that the Ramsey County Court Administrator issue a “writ of execution,” or court action directing the Ramsey County Sheriff to seize the property in its entirety. A notice was posted on the building Friday.

“Voters have endorsed efforts to make development more efficient. But streamlining alone will not help solve the housing crisis if the city’s agencies lack the resources to implement these reforms, or if rent-stabilized homes fall further into distress.”

Homes and apartments in Queens. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

As New York City voters elected Zohran Mamdani as their next mayor with his promise of a rent freeze, they also sent a message to the city that they want more housing development, and they want it faster, when they approved pro-housing ballot measures. 

It’s now up to the incoming Mamdani administration to pursue a strategy that follows through on the newly approved measures to accelerate affordable housing production while also protecting the affordable homes we already have, especially New York City’s more than 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The strategy should include addressing long-standing capacity needs at New York City’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD), and bringing down skyrocketing operational expenses that will send rent-stabilized housing stock into further distress.  

Currently, projects languish in the zoning review process typically for more than two years, which can “increase development costs by 11 percent to 16 percent, depending on a project’s size and financing, assuming no other changes in a project’s scope,” a report from the Citizens Budget Commission found. Development teams routinely take on significant pre-development debt and every delay increases costs, undermines feasibility, and shrinks the pipeline of new affordable homes. 

Voters made clear they want the process to change. One approved ballot measure will fast-track reviews for 100 percent affordable housing projects citywide, as well as for new, mixed-income housing proposed in neighborhoods that currently produce the fewest homes. Another will accelerate reviews for apartment and condo projects that exceed existing size limits by a small margin. A third change creates a new appeals panel designed to allow developers to challenge City Council decisions that reject or alter housing-related land use applications. A final measure directs the city to digitize its official paper maps to help modernize and streamline future rezoning efforts.

Collectively, these measures are intended to streamline approvals, reduce political delays, and help viable projects advance more quickly through the city’s complex land use process. But these reforms will only work if the administration ensures that HPD, and other city agencies responsible for carrying out these changes, have the resources and staffing necessary to keep pace.

At the same time, New York must preserve the affordable housing already in place as owners contend with rising costs. A new analysis from LISC NY, National Equity Fund, and Enterprise shows that operating expenses for affordable housing have surged nearly 40 percent since 2017. Insurance costs have risen by more than 110 percent, administrative costs by over 50 percent, and repairs and maintenance by 35 percent. The analysis also found that rent collection in these units dropped from 94.2 percent in 2019 to 90.6 percent in 2024. While that nearly 5 percentage point shift may seem small, as arrears climb month-to-month, the financial strain grows exponentially, the analysis said. 

This mismatch between rising costs and falling revenue has pushed a majority of properties into distress. In 2024, 57 percent of buildings in the study operated with negative cash flow, threatening building conditions and long-term affordability, and the financial health of nonprofit owners, who make up 64 percent of the portfolio reviewed in the report.

Importantly, these same pressures extend to rent-stabilized housing. A recent analysis by the Community Preservation Corporation of 14,500 rent-stabilized units in its portfolio found that per-unit expenses increased 22 percent between 2020 and 2023, driven by spiking insurance premiums, utilities, staffing costs, and repair needs. 

Rent-stabilized apartments represent about 44 percent of the city’s rental housing. Without support to manage rising expenses, this crucial stock is at risk of deterioration or disinvestment. If the administration pursues a rent freeze for these homes as it has promised, it must pair that policy with tools that lower or help with rising expenses to keep these buildings safe, solvent, and well-maintained. Otherwise, a short-term effort to help tenants could unintentionally destabilize this working-class housing.

The road forward requires balance and investment. Voters have endorsed efforts to make development more efficient, but streamlining alone will not help solve the housing crisis if the city’s agencies lack the resources to implement these reforms or if rent-stabilized homes fall further into distress. The Mamdani administration must deliver a comprehensive approach that speeds the creation of new homes while stabilizing the housing that millions of New Yorkers depend on every day.

New Yorkers asked for real change. Now the city must act swiftly, strategically, and with the full understanding that production and preservation are equally essential to an affordable future.

Valerie White is the senior executive director at LISC NY. Christine R. O’Connell is senior director of capital investments and expanded markets at LISC NY.

The post Opinion: On Affordable Housing, Mamdani Must Pair Speed With Stability appeared first on City Limits.

By STEPHEN GROVES and JOSH FUNK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON D.C. (AP) — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz threatened Monday to hold up funding to keep the federal government open after the end of January if reforms don’t pass by then to tighten up the rules on military flights and help prevent deadly crashes like the collision between an airliner and an Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67.

Cruz and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell held a news conference Monday with some of the victims’ families to urge Congress to strip provisions from a massive defense bill that would allow military aircraft to get a waiver to return to operating without broadcasting their precise location, just as they were before the Jan. 29 crash.

It’s not clear if Republican leadership will allow the defense bill to be amended because that would send the bill back to the House and could delay raises for soldiers and other key provisions. But if the defense bill passes as written now, Cruz said, he will hold up government funding until the bill he introduced last summer is passed to fix the problem.

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Cruz said the defense bill provision “was airdropped in at at the last moment,” noting it would unwind actions taken by President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make the airspace around D.C. safer.

“The special carve-out was exactly what caused the January 29th crash that claimed 67 lives,” Cruz said.

Before the crash, military helicopters routinely flew through the crowded airspace around the nation’s capital without using a key system called ADS-B to broadcast their locations. The Federal Aviation Administration began requiring all aircraft to do that in March.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, senators, airlines and key transportation unions all sharply criticized the new helicopter safety provisions in the defense bill last week when they came to light.

Cruz and Cantwell said they only became aware that the sprawling military bill would have that language after it was finalized by congressional leaders last week. They began strenuously objecting as soon as they realized it contained the exemptions.

The families of the crash victims said this bill would weaken safeguards and send aviation safety backwards.

“Our families know the consequences of systemic failures, and we cannot accept a policy change that makes our skies less safe,” the families said in a statement.

The NTSB won’t release its final report on the cause of the crash until sometime next year, but investigators have already raised a number of key concerns about the 85 near misses around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the crash and the helicopter route that allowed Black Hawks to fly dangerously close to planes landing at the airport’s secondary runway.

The bill Cruz and Cantwell proposed to require all aircraft to broadcast their locations has broad support from the White House, the FAA, NTSB and the victims’ families.