Despite last-minute objections from attorneys for CVS and a mystery property owner, the St. Paul City Council has ordered the demolition of the vacant former CVS building at Snelling and University avenues, an eyesore property that has loomed large over neighborhood discussions and even the recent mayor’s race.

The seven-member council voted unanimously on Wednesday evening to order the site at 499 Snelling Ave. N. demolished within 15 days.

“CVS has done nothing for years,” said Ward 4 Council Member Molly Coleman, who noted 600 police visits to the site in the past five years. “The clock has run out.”

The CVS, which opened in 2007, was looted during the riots of May 2020, briefly reopened and then closed permanently, attracting vandals, loiterers and open-air drug sales. It was added to the city’s official registered vacant building list in 2023 when the city revoked its certificate of occupancy following “dozens upon dozens of code enforcement abatement orders,” said Marcia Moermond, the city’s legislative hearing officer, prior to the council vote.

“Everything from graffiti, broken windows, garbage … clean-up of needles,” said Moermond, noting that CVS and the property owner failed to provide a nuisance abatement plan during two public hearings held in September and October.

“There have been hundreds of police calls in the last five years to this site,” she continued. “The building itself is missing its ventilation system. The electrical systems are extremely compromised and not working. When you look at pictures of the building on the interior, you can see it is not a functional space, but rather a rather large trash bin.”

Public hearing

Moermond and several other speakers at a public hearing immediately prior to the vote encouraged the council to order the structure razed and removed, though even some critics of the corporation’s handling of its vacant property worried about adding another empty lot to the neighborhood.

CVS has “been doing nothing for this community for three years, and I don’t trust them to do anything now,” said Carter Bell, a renter who lives in the neighborhood. “They only came here just because this resolution is being considered.”

Mike Hahm, a former city Parks and Rec director who advises the ownership of the United Village development around Allianz Field, urged demolition.

“The property in question, at the most traveled intersection in the city of St. Paul, has been a blight for 2 1/2 years,” he said. “It’s been too long. It needs to go.”

Those views were echoed by representatives of the Hamline-Midway Coalition, the Midway Investment Cooperative and the Union Park District Council, who said they had little faith in CVS after years of property neglect.

An empty lot

Still, whether demolition will draw new investment remains unclear.

The CVS corporation maintains a lease at 499 Snelling Ave. N. through January of the year 2031, raising the possibility it could simply maintain an empty lot there for years. During a public hearing immediately prior to the council vote, an attorney for CVS asked for 120 days to continue discussions with two or more prospective buyers.

“I think everyone can agree that the property is not currently being used in its highest and best use,” said Adam Niblick, an attorney with the Taft law firm in Minneapolis. “There are, however, several individuals who are interested in acquiring the property for redevelopment purposes. … Any proposed sale will be ultimately decided by the property owner.”

Niblick said razing the structure “dramatically decreases” the likelihood of a property sale, and noted that if the site is sold, a buyer might remove it anyway. He said CVS had improved security monitoring and was willing to remove an existing dumpster corral, paint the building a dark color with graffiti-resistant paint and coating, replace back railings and remove plywood shutters and replace them with metal shutters.

“The long-term solution may very well disappear if the property is razed by the city,” said Niblick, who was previously a city employee.

The site is owned by a limited liability corporation, a landowner of ambiguous title (“Scp 2005 C21 045 LLC”) with a post office box in Spokane, Wash. The address appears to be a “virtual post office box” — a service that allows companies to view scanned images of their mail and have mail forwarded to another address.

“We represent the landowner Scp 2005 C21 045 LLC and we concur with the comments made by the tenant, CVS,” said attorney David Sienko of the law firm Levander Gillen and Miller in Eagan, addressing the council. “We believe that our interests are all aligned … 120 days would be sufficient time for us to continue negotiations with potential buyers of the property, and allow for negotiations.”

Coleman rejects ‘Hail Mary’

Coleman said she was unimpressed.

“At the 11th hour, CVS claims that they have inklings of a plan for this property,” she said. “There’s even now no documentation of the possible buyers of the building. … There’s no evidence that this is anything other than a final ‘Hail Mary’ to keep this building standing within our neighborhood.”

Still, some neighborhood residents expressed concern that removing the structure could just prolong problems, as land speculators buying an empty lot might sit on it for years without redeveloping it, which has been the case with vacant lots elsewhere in the neighborhood.

“Crime is a big factor for the past seven years,” said Jerry Ratliff, a longtime neighborhood resident. “I would strongly suggest you survey businesses and residents of Hamline-Midway neighborhood about bulldozing CVS without an immediate replacement in hand.”

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Ratliff recommended converting the site into a temporary police substation or hosting a breakroom for Metro Transit fare checkers. Others have called for affordable housing or another community-oriented use.

Coleman noted that the property remains in the hands of the private sector, not the city, and once demolition is complete, the council will not be in charge of redevelopment.

“The city is not taking ownership of this property, and we will not have legal grounds to determine what comes next,” Coleman said. “This action is about eliminating the active threat to our community that is posed by this nuisance property.”