After "gut-wrenching pause," Highland Bridge gains steam
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Ryan developers and city officials broke ground Monday on the latest Highland Bridge project. Photo: Nick Halter/Axios
Nearly three years after a pullback in building at St. Paul's Highland Bridge over rent control, city leaders and developers celebrated this week what both sides hope is a new beginning.
Why it matters: The 2022 pausing of Highland Bridge threatened to thwart one of the biggest public-private partnership developments in city history and leave large swaths of prime land along the Mississippi River desolate.
- But a deal between the city and master developer Ryan Cos. to reduce density and height requirements and to amend a tax incentive agreement has jump-started the project.
Driving the news: Ryan broke ground Monday on a four-building development that will deliver 97 market-rate apartments and 35,000 square feet of retail space, including a Tierra Encantada day care, by fall of 2026.
- The pact between the city and Ryan is also expected to jumpstart a 170-unit market-rate apartment building that Ryan executive Maureen Michalski said is slated to break ground next year. Weidner Apartment Homes is the developer of that building.
- Building market-rate housing has an exponential effect. Once they're open, those apartments generate tax revenues that help subsidize future low-income housing at the site.
What they're saying: Ryan officials — who had a disagreement with Mayor Melvin Carter's office over what it viewed as an inadequate rollback of certain rent control provisions — painted a picture of an improved relationship with city leadership.
- National president Mike Ryan said his company met with Carter's office a year ago, following a "gut-wrenching" period of time in which the equation for building at the site was broken.
- "We saw everybody roll up their sleeves and lean in and say, 'this place is worth fighting for. How do we get it back on track?' And I personally want to thank (Carter)," Ryan said.
State of play: The former Ford Motor factory is starting to take the shape of a large residential community.
- Builders have now completed about 1,000 units of housing — or about a third of the 3,100 Ryan is currently planning, after scaling back from the original master developer agreement calling for 3,800.
- The project that broke ground Monday will deliver the last remaining public space, a plaza on the corner of Ford Parkway and Cretin Avenue. All other playgrounds, parks and water features are complete.
- Around 150 of the for-sale row homes are finished.
- Six of 20 single-family lots on the Mississippi River have been sold, all in various stages of construction.
What we're watching: How long it takes for the remaining 30 acres of the 122-acre project to be developed.