St. Paul’s busy Snelling Avenue corridor may be about to get a little bit busier.
In 2015 Minneapolis-based Ryan Cos. and The Excelsior Group of St. Louis Park built the Vintage on Selby apartment and supermarket project at 1555 Selby Ave. Now they are teaming up again on a new apartment project right across Selby at 164 Snelling Ave.
On Monday the developers presented a first look at their design to the Union Park District Council: 163 apartment units, 205 parking stalls and more than 4,000 square feet for longtime St. Paul restaurant O’Gara’s. Ryan has submitted plans to the city of St. Paul and hopes to complete the approval process and begin construction by fall.
Tony Barranco, Ryan’s senior vice president of real estate development, said in an interview the companies are excited to tackle a second project in the neighborhood.
“That node in St. Paul has got everything,” he said. “It’s got great, unique shopping and restaurants. You’ve got entertainment with the new soccer stadium going in. You’ve got access to transit. You’ve really got it all.”
Ryan and Excelsior aren’t the only developers at work along Snelling. Minneapolis-based Reuter Walton and partners are developing a mixed-use project farther south at 246 Snelling Ave.
The site also is near the new Minnesota United FC stadium, Interstate 94, a Green Line light rail station and the A Line Bus Rapid Transit route. All of these combined make for a busy street, so much so that the district council is working on proposals to improve pedestrian safety at the Snellings-Selby intersection and potentially add medians along Snelling.
Barranco said the developers are aware of the traffic conditions but said attractions bringing so many people to the neighborhood represent a net positive for their plans.
“Certainly if we had concerns about it, we wouldn’t have done it a second time after the Vintage, but actually we think the vibrancy created by people walking and biking and driving through the area is critical to making a project like that work,” he said.
Asked how the development would fit into the surrounding area, Ward 1 City Council Member Dai Thao said in an email statement the project is an opportunity for his district.
“I’m eager to work with both the residents and developer to make this project work for the neighborhood,” he said.
Construction would begin with demolishing O’Gara’s, its parking lot and three adjacent houses. The restaurant, which has been in business more than 70 years, will return on the ground floor with both indoor and outdoor seating. Third-generation owner Dan O’Gara said in a press release the project will result in a better, smaller footprint for a neighborhood pub and restaurant, and Barranco said the design includes many efforts to honor the restaurant’s history.
“We obviously were very interested in taking cues from the O’Gara’s aesthetic on the site. Reincorporating some of the signage, and even where some of the signage is, was important to us,” he said.
Barranco said the partners are not ready to disclose a budget for the project or the unit mix of the apartments. However, he noted that the developers are voluntarily designating three units to be affordable to renters making 60 percent or less of the area median income.
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