{"id":58374,"date":"2016-04-14T11:30:55","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T16:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58374"},"modified":"2016-04-14T08:47:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T13:47:02","slug":"state-of-the-union-depot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58374","title":{"rendered":"State Of The Union Depot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago, Saint Paul re-opened the Union Depot after a $240 million taxpayer-financed facelift.<\/p>\n

Now comes news that Christos – a long-time anchor restaurant in the Depot’s lobby, since back the day when the Depot itself was the anchor, ifYouGetMyDrift, \u00a0is likely bailing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OK, restaurants come and go – although it’s weird to think a place like Christos, that survived a couple of decades in the neighborhood\u00a0before taxpayer-finance subsistence in the form of CHS Stadium and government-subsidized artist lofts finally came to Lowertown, is\u00a0just now\u00a0<\/em>pulling up stakes and heading back to Minneapolis (although that is perhaps part of a larger series to be done, about why restaurants just can’t make it in Saint Paul, and so retreat to Minneapolis or the ‘burbs to make ends meet).<\/p>\n

But behind that story? \u00a0The big news: \u00a0even with all the taxpayer-subsidized largesse descending on Lowertown, the\u00a0Union Depot is\u00a0losing $6 million dollars a year<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t go a week that somebody doesn\u2019t stop me in the street and say, \u2018You threw away my money,\u2019 \u201d said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who fought from the beginning for the Depot project. \u201cHow do you put a price on quality of life, mobility of community, which has a huge impact on economic situation?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do. \u00a0It’s in the property taxes I pay to finance Rafael Ortega’s version of “quality of life”. \u00a0It’s a very definite amount, and it takes away from my quality of life.<\/p>\n

I digress:<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t put a price, you can put a cost. Ramsey County says the Depot is bringing in $1.7 million in revenue, but costing $7.7 million to operate. That\u2019s up from 2014, when revenues were $1.5 million and operating expenses $6 million \u2014 a $4.5 million gap.<\/p>\n

Ortega, who is chair of the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority, and other county officials say the site was never meant to be a direct revenue generator. They note repeatedly that ridership, foot traffic and the Depot\u2019s long-term social and economic benefits may not be realized until years \u2014 perhaps decades. And since its December 2012 opening, they have focused on attracting major carriers, and gotten them: Amtrak, Greyhound and Megabus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They got them by squeezing out of perfectly adequate quarters elsewhere; Amtrak’s presumably long-paid-for station on Cleveland is now sitting fallow; the former Greyhound “station” on University, likewise. \u00a0Megabus? \u00a0In Minneapolis, Megabus picks up at a city bus stop by Target Center. \u00a0No need to spend hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n

And don’t give me that “the long-term benefits won’t be realized for decades” claptrap, Mr. Ortega; that sounds a lot like “there’s trouble in River City and that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool”.<\/p>\n

Look, I get it. \u00a0It’s a beautiful depot. \u00a0But we warned you this would happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years ago, Saint Paul re-opened the Union Depot after a $240 million taxpayer-financed facelift. Now comes news that Christos – a long-time anchor restaurant in the Depot’s lobby, since back the day when the Depot itself was the anchor, ifYouGetMyDrift, \u00a0is likely bailing. OK, restaurants come and go – although it’s weird to think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trains-and-automobiles","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58399,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58374\/revisions\/58399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}