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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