It started with a phone call. In 2019, artists who rent work studios in the six-level ACVR warehouse at 106 Water St., at the edge of St. Paul’s Harriet Island Regional Park, learned that their work spaces would be sold to an Edina developer and other partners who seemed intent on converting much of the former Farwell, Ozmun, Kirk & Co. building into long-term storage units.

Alarmed, St. Paul City Council Member Rebecca Noecker called Peter Deanovic, founding principal of Buhl Investors, and encouraged him to think bigger. Rather than pricing out artists — many of whom had previously been displaced by rising rents in Lowertown  — from the 1910 “F.O.K.” building, would he consider developing housing near Harriet Island instead?

Buhl Investors soon discovered that would require heavy infrastructure investment, including a new sanitary sewer line, as well as a new navigable street replacing Bidwell Street between Plato Boulevard and Water Street. City officials scrambled to put together more than $24 million in tax increment financing, a development incentive that allows the net tax revenue increase from the elevated market value of construction improvements to be used on site.

In late June, Deanovic welcomed St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, Noecker and a who’s who of city officials and project supporters to not one but two new apartment buildings — the luxury Esox House and the income-restricted Harbourline Apartments building — as well as the partially remodeled F-O-K Studios artist building. The three structures fill out Farwell-on-Water, a new micro-neighborhood now situated directly across the street from the Mississippi River and Harriet Island Regional Park.

Artists persevere

“Buhl has been very supportive of the artists,” said Melissa Critchley, an acrylic and abstract artist who has worked out of a F-0-K studio since January 2023. “They’ve given us some discretionary funds to help us hold our events there, such as the St. Paul Art Crawl.”

Even after improvements to several floors, rents for studio workspace at the F-O-K are some 30 to 50% below the going market rate, according to Buhl.

Keeping rents relatively low was made possible by the addition of three and a half stories of commercial storage space, as well as 30,000 square feet of co-working office space on the sixth floor, of which 7,000 has been leased to the Friends of the Mississippi River.

“I did some price comparison, and I felt that it was a good value,” Critchley said.

Esox House

Esox House, located nearby at 150 W. Water St., spans 221 market-rate, luxury studio alcoves and one- and two-bedroom apartments, as well as a ground-level commercial space being equipped for a future restaurant. Rents range from $1,375 to $3,850.

A view from Esox House in St. Paul, which overlooks Harriet island and the Mississippi River, on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Among its amenities, the Esox House courtyard hosts an outdoor heated sauna with two outdoor waterfall bucket showers, as well as a bocce ball court and a yurt for an intimate outdoor experience.

During the past century or more, the industry on site included a lumber yard, a shingle factory, a noodle factory and more. As homage to that era, the ruins of an old varnish plant have been preserved as public art, but previous structures have otherwise been replaced by a large public green dubbed The Farwell Yard.

“This has a long history of industrialized activity that limited the amount of access to nature and to Harriet Island,” said Deanovic, during a June 25 open house. “We’re really excited about being able to open the doors, and being able to adapt to change.”

Harbourline Apartments, located 115 Plato Boulevard, offers 63 income-restricted units targeted to residents earning no more than 50% of area median income.

Seven units have been reserved for residents who were previously homeless, with rents paid by Ramsey County. Otherwise, one-bedroom units are priced at $1,165 and two-bedrooms at $1,397, inclusive of utilities.

Community criticism, and feedback, taken to heart

Some advocates with the West Side Community Organization have chafed at the title Farwell-on-Water, given that the general area between Robert Street and what is now U.S. 52 has long been known as the West Side Flats, home in the first half of the 1900s to waves of new immigrants, including a large Mexican-American, Jewish and Lebanese population, among others.

Monica Bravo, executive director of WSCO, acknowledged that Buhl Investors had been in contact throughout the concept planning and development process, and they achieved deeper affordability at the Harbourline Apartments than many other affordable housing projects to date.

Still, she said, she would have preferred larger family-size units. The community organization ultimately wrote a letter of opposition against the substantial use of tax increment finance dollars.

Deanovic said in addition to affordability, community feedback was taken to heart to influence everything from building heights to green space.

Constructing luxury and affordable housing next to artist work space is “not for the faint of heart, because pivoting and doing multiple product types is something that is ordinarily taken on by the big guys or gals, and we aren’t that,” Deanovic said. “This (Esox) building is not six stories. It’s five. Artist studios exist today as a result of that feedback. This lawn is intended to bring people closer to nature.”

Anne Deanovic, a communications specialist for the project, said that having market-rate housing was key toward financing the affordable housing, as well as the new road. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development provided a $2.3 million environmental clean-up grant, and the city awarded some $2.2 million in federal pandemic relief dollars through the American Rescue Plant Act.

Ramsey County and the Metropolitan Council provided smaller grants for environmental remediation and rental assistance.

The kitchen and living room of a one bedroom unit at Esox House on the West Side in St. Paul on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

‘A place people want to live’

The mayor also celebrated the side-by-side arrival of both luxury and affordable housing just off Harriet Island, within a general area that has proven to be a bright spot for new multi-family housing at a time of deep construction slowdowns in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Among the large multi-family apartment buildings in the area are the Cordelle, Soul and the West Side Flats.

“When we find ourselves using phrases like ‘housing crisis,’ what we’re talking about essentially is the fact that we have more people than units in our community,” said Carter, during the June 25 open house.

“There’s a good thing in that, because it means that we’re a place that people want to live,” added Carter. “And there’s a requirement, there’s a responsibility for us to build new housing. When somebody invests in this space right here to say we can work together to produce not just housing, but amazing housing for our residents, that’s always a good thing. Let’s have a round of applause for that.”

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Brooks Lee is knocking down the door of the big leagues, likely to debut at some point this season.

But while his Twins debut date is still up in the air, he’ll have a chance to play at a major league stadium later this month, representing the Twins at the Futures Game at Globe Field in Arlington, Texas.

Lee is also set to participate in the inaugural skills showcase, which will be a three-part hitting contest featuring challenges called Hit it Here (hitters try to hit targets), Call Your Shot (batters predict where they will hit the ball) and Swing for the Fences (which resembles home run derby).

The event will take place on July 13 and will air on MLB Network. It will also be available to watch via MLB.tv, MLB.com and in the MLB app.

“It’s a nice honor for any young player to be given, and he’ll enjoy it,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “They all do. All the guys have fun. … It kind of boosts you in some ways. You could call it almost like a good ego boost in some ways.”

Lee, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2022 draft, has been productive at Triple-A since returning from a back issue suffered late in spring training.

In 19 games entering Tuesday, he was hitting .333 with a .617 OPS. He had six home runs and five doubles among his 27 hits. While he’s currently blocked at the major league level in the infield, he could force the issue sooner rather than later.

“He has been playing some really good baseball. Everything we’ve heard is right where we would want it to be, and he’s out there proving himself,” Baldelli said. “That’s really what this is all about for him right now. Getting out there, showing us what he can do, showing himself what he can do and turning himself into the best player he can be. He’s doing all that.”

Bright lights

There was a noticeable difference in the Twins’ clubhouse on Tuesday upon entry.

A new lighting system had been installed while the Twins were on their 10-day road trip, aimed at helping players adjust their eyes and bodies to help prepare for games.

The lights were so bright that right fielder Max Kepler was donning a pair of sunglasses inside before the game.

“One thing we talked about late in spring training, early in the season was the fact that we play a lot of day games. How do we get ready for these day games? How do we help ourselves prepare better?” Baldelli said. “We’ve done a lot of things. So just one of them is trying to brighten yourself up a little bit so you don’t feel like when you walk into the clubhouse here, you’re walking into a windowless casino or something like that.”

Injury updates

Reliever Brock Stewart has progressed into throwing live batting practice, with one session on Tuesday and another set up for Friday. The Twins will see how he responds before determining his next steps, which could then be a rehab assignment.

Stewart has not pitched in a game since May 1, dealing with right shoulder tendinitis. His return — he currently has a 0.68 earned-run average across 13 games — would be a big boost for the Twins’ bullpen.

Fellow reliever Justin Topa (knee) has also been progressing, and he is scheduled to throw two bullpens this week. Topa has not pitched in a major league game this season, experiencing more knee soreness after going out on a rehab assignment in late April/early May.

Briefly

Top pitching prospect David Festa will make his Target Field debut on Wednesday night. Festa gave up five runs in five innings in his debut last week in Arizona. … Tigers starter Jack Flaherty (back) was scratched from Wednesday’s game against the Twins.

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By HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films whose work on “Chinatown” became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, has died. He was 89.

Towne died Monday surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said publicist Carri McClure. She declined to comment on any cause of death.

In an industry which gave birth to rueful jokes about the writer’s status, Towne for a time held prestige comparable to the actors and directors he worked with. Through his friendships with two of the biggest stars of the 1960s and ’70s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he wrote or co-wrote some of the signature films of an era when artists held an unusual level of creative control. The rare “auteur” among screen writers, Towne managed to bring a highly personal and influential vision of Los Angeles onto the screen.

“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “It’s the westernmost west of America. It’s a sort of place of last resort. It’s a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they’re forever disappointed.”

Recognizable around Hollywood for his high forehead and full beard, Towne won an Academy Award for “Chinatown” and was nominated three other times, for “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo” and “Greystroke.” In 1997, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.

His success came after a long stretch of working in television, including “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” and on low-budget movies for “B” producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business story, he owed his breakthrough in part to his psychiatrist, through whom he met Beatty, a fellow patient. As Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought in Towne for revisions of the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on the set while the movie was filmed in Texas.

Towne’s contributions were uncredited for “Bonnie and Clyde,” the landmark crime film released in 1967, and for years he was a favorite ghost writer. He helped out on “The Godfather” and “Heaven Can Wait” among others and referred to himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning, not pitch the whole game.” But Towne was credited by name for Nicholson’s macho “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s sex comedy “Shampoo” and was immortalized by “Chinatown,” the 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.

“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and starred Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private detective asked to follow the husband of Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway). The husband is chief engineer the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Gittes finds himself caught in a chaotic spiral of corruption and violence, embodied by Evelyn’s ruthless father, Noah Cross (John Huston).

Influenced by the fiction of Raymond Chandler, Towne resurrected the menace and mood of a classic Los Angeles film noir, but cast Gittes’ labyrinthine odyssey across a grander and more insidious portrait of Southern California. Clues accumulate into a timeless detective tale, and lead helplessly to tragedy, summed up by the one of the most repeated lines in movie history, words of grim fatalism a devastated Gittes receives from his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Towne’s script has been a staple of film writing classes ever since, although it also serves as a lesson in how movies often get made and in the risks of crediting any film to a single viewpoint. He would acknowledge working closely with Polanski as they revised and tightened the story and arguing fiercely with the director over the film’s despairing ending — an ending Polanski pushed for and Towne later agreed was the right choice (No one has officially been credited for writing “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown”).

But the concept began with Towne, who had turned down the chance to adapt “The Great Gatsby” for the screen so he could work on “Chinatown,” partly inspired by a book published in 1946, Carey McWilliams’ “Southern California: An Island on the Land.”

“In it was a chapter called ‘Water, water, water,’ which was a revelation to me. And I thought ‘Why not do a picture about a crime that’s right out in front of everybody,‘” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2009.

“Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as prevalent as water faucets, and make a conspiracy out of that. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving the farmers out of their land, I realized the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous.”

The back story of “Chinatown” has itself become a kind of detective story, explored in producer Robert Evans’ memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”; in Peter Biskind’s “East Riders, Raging Bulls,” a history of 1960s-1970s Hollywood, and in Sam Wasson’s “The Big Goodbye,” dedicated entirely to “Chinatown.” In “The Big Goodbye,” published in 2020, Wasson alleged that Towne was helped extensively by a ghost writer — former college roommate Edward Taylor. According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not ask for credit on the film because his “friendship with Robert” mattered more.

Wasson also wrote that the movie’s famous closing line originated with a vice cop who had told Towne that crimes in Chinatown were seldom prosecuted.

“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” Wasson wrote. “Not just a place on the map in Los Angeles, but a condition of total awareness almost indistinguishable from blindness. Dreaming you’re in paradise and waking up in the dark — that’s Chinatown. Thinking you’ve got it figured out and realizing you’re dead — that’s Chinatown.”

The studios assumed more power after the mid-1970s and Towne’s standing declined. His own efforts at directing, including “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise,” had mixed results. “The Two Jakes,” the long-awaited sequel to “Chinatown,” was a commercial and critical disappointment when released in 1990 and led to a temporary estrangement between Towne and Nicholson.

Around the same time, he agreed to work on a movie far removed from the art-house aspirations of the ’70s, the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a race car driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. The 1990 movie was famously over budget and mostly panned, although its admirers include Quentin Tarantino and countless racing fans. And Towne’s script popularized an expression used by Duvall after Cruise complains another car slammed him: “He didn’t slam into you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you. He rubbed you.

“And rubbin,′ son, is racin.’”

Towne later worked with Cruise on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” movies. His most recent film was “Ask the Dust,” a Los Angeles story he wrote and directed that came out in 2006. Towne was married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and had two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also wrote screenplays, his credits including “The Natural.”

Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro after his father’s business, a dress shop, closed down because of the Great Depression. (His father changed the family name to Towne). He had always loved to write and was inspired to work in movies by the proximity of the Warner Bros. Theater and from reading the critic James Agee. For a time, Towne worked on a tuna boat and would speak often of its impact.

“I’ve identified fishing with writing in my mind to the extent that each script is like a trip that you’re taking — and you are fishing,” he told the Writers Guild Association in 2013. “Sometimes they both involve an act of faith … Sometimes it’s sheer faith alone that sustains you, because you think, ‘God damn it, nothing — not a bite today. Nothing is happening.’”

____

AP Film Writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report.

By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and LEE KEATH

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Hamdan family — around a dozen people from three generations — fled their home in the middle of the night after the Israeli military ordered an evacuation from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

They found refuge with extended relatives in a building further north, inside an Israeli-declared safe zone. But hours after they arrived, an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday afternoon hit their building in the town of Deir al-Balah, killing nine members of the family and three others.

In all, five children and three women were among the dead, according to hospital records and a relative who survived.

Israel’s order on Monday for people to leave the eastern half of Khan Younis — the territory’s second-largest city — has triggered the third mass flight of Palestinians in as many months, throwing the population deeper into confusion, chaos and misery as they scramble once again to find safety.

About 250,000 people live in the area covered by the order, according to the United Nations. Many of them had just returned to their homes there after fleeing Israel’s invasion of Khan Younis earlier this year — or had just taken refuge there after escaping Israel’s offensive in the city of Rafah, further south.

The order also prompted a frantic flight from European General Hospital, Gaza’s second-largest hospital, located in the evacuation area. The facility shut down after staffers and more than 200 patients were evacuated overnight and on Tuesday, along with thousands of displaced who had sheltered on the hospital grounds, according to the staff and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had a medical team there.

Hisham Mhanna, the ICRC spokesperson in Gaza, said some families dragged patients in their hospital beds through the streets for up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) to reach safety. Ambulances moved others elsewhere as staff rushed out valuable equipment, including X-ray and ultrasound machines and endoscopy devices now so scarce, said a nurse, Muhammad Younis.

Hours after ordering the evacuation, the Israeli military said the hospital was not included on that order. But the staff said they feared a repeat of previous Israeli raids on other Gaza hospitals.

“Many hospitals have come to rubble and have been turned into battlefields or graveyards,” Mhanna said.

Israel has raided hospitals, saying Hamas uses them for military purposes, a claim Gaza’s medical officials deny.

On Tuesday, cars loaded with personal belongings streamed out of eastern Khan Younis, though the number of those fleeing was not immediately known. The new exodus comes on top of the 1 million people who fled Rafah since May, as well as tens of thousands who were displaced the past week from a new Israeli offensive in the Shijaiyah district of northern Gaza.

“We left everything behind,” said Munir Hamza, a father of three children who on Monday night fled his home in an eastern district of Khan Younis for the second time. “We are tired of moving and displacement. … This is unbearable.”

Nowhere safe

Up to 15 members of the Hamdan family fled their Khan Younis home and arrived late on Monday at their extended family’s building in Deir al-Balah, said Asmaa Salim, a relative who lived in the building.

The building was located inside the extended humanitarian zone that the Israeli military had declared when it began its offensive in Rafah in May, telling Palestinians to evacuate there for safety.

The strike came around 3 p.m. on Tuesday. Associated Press video shows an entire floor of the building gutted. “Almost everyone inside was martyred, only two or three survived,” Salim told the AP.

A list of the dead posted at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said those killed included the family patriarch, 62-year-old dermatologist Hossam Hamdan, as well as his wife and their adult son and daughter. Four of their grandchildren, aged 3 to 5, and the mother of two of the children were also killed. A man and his 5-year-old son who lived in the building and a man on the street outside were also killed in the strike, which wounded 10 other people, including several children.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the strike.

Flight from Khan Younis

Monday’s evacuation order suggested a new ground assault into Khan Younis could be coming though there was no immediate sign of one. Israeli forces waged a months-long offensive there earlier this year, battling Hamas fighters and leaving large swaths of the southern city destroyed or heavily damaged.

Israel has repeatedly moved back into parts of the Gaza Strip it previously invaded to root out fighters it said had regrouped — a sign of Hamas’ continued capabilities even after nearly nine-months of war in Gaza. Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the U.S., Canada, and European Union.

Israel’s campaign has killed more than 37,900 Palestinians, the majority women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish combatants among its count. Israel launched its campaign after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took around 250 others hostage.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it estimates that some 1.8 million Palestinians are now in the humanitarian zone it declared, covering a stretch of about 14 kilometers (8.6 miles) along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. Much of that area is now blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities with limited access to aid, U.N. and humanitarian groups say. Families live amid mountains of trash and streams of water contaminated by sewage.

The amount of food and other supplies getting into Gaza has plunged since the Rafah offensive began. The U.N. says fighting, Israeli military restrictions and general chaos — including looting of trucks by criminal gangs in Gaza — make it near impossible for it to pick up truckloads of goods that Israel has let in. As a result, cargo is stacked up uncollected just inside Gaza at the main Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, near Rafah.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said last week that it surveyed nearly 1,100 families who fled Rafah and 83% of them reported having no access to food and more than half had no access to safe water.

On Tuesday, more families fleeing Khan Younis were trying to find space in the zone. Um Abdel-Rahman said she and her family of four children — the youngest 3 years old — walked for hours during the night to reach the zone only to find no place to stay.

“There is no room for anyone,” she said. “We are waiting and have nothing to do but wait.”

Noha al-Bana said she has been displaced four times since fleeing Gaza City in the north early in the war.

“We have been humiliated,” she said. “No proper food, no proper water, no proper bathrooms, no proper place for sleep. … Fear, fear, fear. There is no safety. No safety at home, no safety in the tents.”

___

Magdy and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

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