The Ryan Cos. recently asked the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals for variances to install four squat, one-story commercial buildings along Ford Parkway, where the Ford site/Highland Bridge master plan has long envisioned at least four-story commercial or mixed-use buildings.

The request has reverberated beyond Highland Park, raising questions about the degree to which office, retail and housing slowdowns in the capital city can be laid at the feet of a market held back by high interest rates and other economic considerations, or rent control and policies within City Hall’s control.

By a vote of 4-2, the Board of Zoning Appeals denied the Minneapolis developer’s requests last month for variances related to height and floor area ratios. On Wednesday, the Ryan Cos. returned to City Hall with two formal appeals to the full city council, noting financing for larger buildings will be difficult to come by in the current financial climate. The council expects to hold a vote on the appeals next week.

Some of the other challenges posed by the site by the Ryan Cos., such as 16-foot grade changes along the sloping parkway and questions around underlying bedrock, are common for real estate projects and far from insurmountable, said Cody Fischer, a real estate developer and member of the advocacy coalition Sustain St. Paul.

Those comments were echoed by former principal city planner Merritt Clapp-Smith and Simon Taghioff, a member of the city’s Planning Commission.

“These are very standard things which are common to other sites in the city,” said Taghioff, deriding the Ryan Cos. plan as a “strip mall” development that neighborhood residents would have to live alongside for decades. “Opportunities like the Ford site don’t come along but once in a lifetime.”

Highland development

Spanning more than 122 acres, the former home of the Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Highland Park has been developed, gradually, into hundreds of housing units, commercial offices, multiple playgrounds and a Lunds & Byerlys grocery store.

The Ryan Cos.’ trimmed-down plans for the blocks near Ford Parkway and Cretin Avenue have received support from city staff, the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and the Highland District Council’s development review committee, which noted a slowdown in construction of mixed-use apartment buildings citywide.

The proposed one-story commercial buildings would be situated in front of a new 97-unit, four-story apartment building, and the Highland committee said last November that neighborhood residents were eager to see retail move forward — a day care has expressed interest in moving into one of the buildings proposed at Cretin Avenue — as well as better pedestrian connections into Highland Bridge.

Council Member Saura Jost, who represents Highland Park, asked Wednesday for the appeals to be laid over and revisited for a council vote on Feb. 19.

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