After nearly two years of study, a long-simmering plan to rezone one and a half miles of Grand Avenue, arguably St. Paul’s most fashionable business corridor, will come to a head Wednesday before the St. Paul City Council.
The goal, in light of years of limited development activity, is to increase the allowable real estate density along 11 blocks of Grand from Ayd Mill Road, which crosses Grand west of Lexington Parkway, to Oakland Avenue, east of Dale Street. Likely as a result of added zoning restrictions, those blocks have experienced little real estate development since a zoning “overlay district” was created in the early 2000s, according to city staff. “Clearly that’s not working,” said senior city planner Spencer Miller-Johnson on Monday.
“It’s been almost 20 years, and we’ve seen very little construction.” Established in 2006, the existing zoning within the overlay district limits building heights to three stories, building footprints to 25,000 square feet and total building sizes to 75,000 square feet. The district officially spans a mix of zoning types, most of it residential (“RM2”) or business (“B”), but the overlay district is even more restrictive than its base zoning when it comes to height and density.
Without the overlay district in place, for instance, development on “RM2” lots would ordinarily allow heights up to 50 feet, or even higher with a conditional use permit. While retail corridors everywhere have experienced changes a.
