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, is likely bailing.
OK, restaurants come and go – although it’s weird to think a place like Christos, that survived a couple of decades in the neighborhood before taxpayer-finance subsistence in the form of CHS Stadium and government-subsidized artist lofts finally came to Lowertown, is just now 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).
But behind that story? The big news: even with all the taxpayer-subsidized largesse descending on Lowertown, the Union Depot is losing $6 million dollars a year:
“It doesn’t go a week that somebody doesn’t stop me in the street and say, ‘You threw away my money,’ ” said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who fought from the beginning for the Depot project. “How do you put a price on quality of life, mobility of community, which has a huge impact on economic situation?”
I do. It’s in the property taxes I pay to finance Rafael Ortega’s version of “quality of life”. It’s a very definite amount, and it takes away from my quality of life.
I digress:
If you can’t 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’s up from 2014, when revenues were $1.5 million and operating expenses $6 million — a $4.5 million gap.
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’s long-term social and economic benefits may not be realized until years — perhaps decades. And since its December 2012 opening, they have focused on attracting major carriers, and gotten them: Amtrak, Greyhound and Megabus.
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. Megabus? In Minneapolis, Megabus picks up at a city bus stop by Target Center. No need to spend hundreds of millions.
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”.
Look, I get it. It’s a beautiful depot. But we warned you this would happen.
A project like this probably has a paper trail. Before the $243,000,000 renovation, expensive consultant firms (also, coincidentally, campaign contributors) will have produced reports, to order, with projected costs and payback times. They were clearly wrong, but hey, if the consultants or the politicians wanted to be held accountable, they would work in the private sector.
In this case it looks like the consultants underestimated the amount of foot traffic the depot would experience. No foot traffic, no retail.
$243 million would provide full boat scholarships to the University of Minnesota for about 2500 students. $243 million would provide a year of health insurance for 25,000 Minnesotans.
Beautiful, but it’s worth noting that even when it was new, it was, except for Postal Service business, probably a money loser. Even when you had numerous trolleys and branch lines feeding people into it, passenger rail really was a public service, not a business, something of a halo that would persuade businessmen to ship their freight on YOUR railroad.
So now that we’ve got 2-4 trains, apart from the Green Line, coming in there per day instead of dozens, and the postal business is long gone (trucks go anywhere, after all), it’s no surprise that a depot that is 80% or more empty space would need an 80% subsidy. It’s just simple math.
For that matter, for most of the first century of railroading, most railroads west of Chicago lost money on the freight business, too. But being liberal means that you don’t need to pay attention to any business plan, I guess.
I have to wonder how many Amtrak trains visit each day. Currently, there is only one daily train to Chicago, and only one daily train westwards terminating in Seattle. There may be others, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time punching in hypothetical train trips into Amtrak’s scheduler. I would not consider less than 10 trains per day a “major” carrier.
OK, looked it up, and it gets 92000 passsengers per year through it–more or less the Empire builder going through a couple of times per day–12 short term parking spaces and 1000 long term parking spaces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Paul_Union_Depot
No parking, in a high vacancy area of St. Paul, designed to be for hundreds of trains per day but getting 2-4….and has 95k square feet. OK, renovation cost $2400/square foot (about 10-20 times the cost of building new), they have no significant parking, no layout suitable for retail, and they’re wondering why on earth they’re losing money. Am I getting that right?
Worse yet, they need $7.5 million per year to operate it, about $80/square foot, which means all their “sustainable” rhetoric is pure nonsense; it’s four to ten times the going rate for office/ retail space.
Someone should face criminal charges for this. If they didn’t predict this, the redevelopers, and if they did, the city council. A grand for every resident of the city is a big deal, even if it’s partially state and federal money.
Bill, you got it–it’s the Empire Builder, nothing more. I remember a few years back they had a second one from Chicago to Minneapolis and no further–the first went all the way to Seattle–but it’s 2-4 trains per day in a facility built for a few hundred. You could more or less handle this with a warming shed and a ticket counter.
site was never meant to be a direct revenue generator.
That is the money (ptp) quote right there. Feelings, nothing more than feelings…
At six million a year to keep the doors open, it is generating revenue for someone.
Ortega damn well knew this thing would suck cash from inception, but it gave him something to do for awhile. He’s a fucking liar, which is too bad because he was one of the very few leftists I could stomach talking to.
Now? Fuck him too.
Whoa, hang on there, you haters. The project isn’t dead, it’s barely beginning.
The old Post Office building at the corner of Kellogg and Jackson was sold to a developer. They’re putting in apartments upstairs, a hotel with swimming pool in the mezzanine, and ground floor retail to include a restaurant. Check them out here: http://www.chstpaul.com/
You just wait, people will be SWARMING to ride the train up from Chicago or down from Fargo, just so they can live in this building, swim in this pool, eat in this restaurant and catch a Saints game. Just you wait.
Mitch, why are you getting so upset? They did this with all the right intentions, and it’s not like it’s your money they’re wasting. They’re still allowing you to keep at least some of their money in that paycheck you get, after all, just less of it than if they hadn’t done this.
(*) A tax cut is viewed as spending as far as all right minded people are concerned, you betcha!
Wow, catch the rents on those apartments. OK, yes, it has some amenities, but they’re more or less arguing that listening to your neighbors fight is worth $24-40 per square foot annually, or a build/purchase price of $400-600/square foot.
There may be less efficient ways to build housing than really tall buildings, but none come to mind. Yikes.
They aren’t apartments, bikebubba, they are residences. I admit that “A life in splendor” may be a slight exaggeration.
The new residences simply need an evocative name to inspire the imagination. Something that sounds like an Italian holiday, perhaps, but also honors our commitment to saving the earth. I’ve got it: Cabrini Green!
Does Donald Trump have anything to do with Union Depot or the post office condo conversion? Because then it will be fantastic!
And yet you don’t see any condemnation of the boondoggle looting of pubic assets and taxpayer money when it was Scott Walker transferring money for a much less worthwhile stadium to his campaign co-chair.
Mitch only objects to projects like this sometimes. It is a classic example of conservative hypocrisy and double standards.
As light rail becomes more popular and extends in al directions, we will likely see a renaissance in train travel.
Translation of Dog Gone’s comment: When the National Socialist is elected President, more people will travel by train. Well, certain people, anyway. They will be forced to, just like last time. Their work will set them free and finally, we will have a solution to our problems.
I think I’d prefer to take a chance on what’s behind Door #2, instead.
DG,
Before I spend time debunking every word that you wrote – and I certainly could, down to the last strawman and red herring – please leave some indication that you actually read these comment threads after you leave your…leavings.
Anything will do. A “Here I am”.
Or “hi”
Or even just a dashed-off “kjwelkvjiwreoiwlkdn”, for all I care.
I’m not going to waste time and energy responding when it seems all you do is poop and run.
Pubic assets, DogGone? Freudian slip there maybe?
And to be blunt, light rail will be viable, economically speaking, about the same time that Hell freezes over. Yes, scummy politicians will cover over the losses as long as they can with the peoples’ money, but basic physics tells us that trains are inherently less efficient than buses and cars, and always will be. It has to do with a dedicated path for them and standard gauge. You cannot get around this.
Mitch only objects to projects like this sometimes. It is a classic example of conservative hypocrisy and double standards.
I object to projects like this almost EVERY time.
All the fancy decorations on the freeway overpasses and ornate lighting that always get awards? Screw that. I want plain boring concrete with no colors, shapes or decorations. Plain black metal light poles. No fancy multicolor LEDs like on the new 35W Mississippi river bridge, or the fancy Hennepin Ave suspension bridge, or the new Lowry Ave bridge. They ALL should look just like the Plymouth Ave Bridge – AS CHEAP AS POSSIBLE WHILE MAINTAINING DURABILITY.
Government offices? They should look like 1960s communist Russia archtecture: Plain concrete. White walls. Concrete floors in the hallways, industrial carpeting in the offices. Plain doors and windows. Oh, that might affect the morale and productivity of government workers? GOOD!! DON’T BE A PARASITE ON SOCIETY AND WORK IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR.
And B: ALL public sector customer facing jobs (Hello DMV) should be staffed from 12-8pm so the PRODUCTIVE CLASS doesn’t have to take personal time off from productive work to deal with government mandates like renewing driver’s licenses and license tabs, or transferring a vehicle title.
I’ll bet that Dog Crap has never even been on the train. Further, I’ll bet she also drives a five or six year old Yukon or Tahoe that she probably just puts gas in it and drives it, getting like 10 miles per gallon.
When the 10 year treasury hits 4%, all it’s going to be amusing to watch this crap get abandoned due to lack of funds.
Except it won’t be amusing because there will be actual human needs not being met by the government at that point.
Get Rick Varco back. He was a devastating debater.