Residents of downtown St. Paul’s Fitzgerald neighborhood gathered Tuesday at 10th and Robert streets to celebrate the excavators and bulldozers turning the dusty earth of a future downtown park.

It’s been a long road, some 10 or 20 or even 30 years in the making, depending upon how you count, but Pedro Park is a year away from welcoming its first visitors.

From left: St. Paul city councilmember Rebecca Noecker, Ward 2, State Representive María Isa Pérez-Vega, DFL-St. Paul, and State Senator Sandra Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, listen to St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter speak during the ground breaking ceremony for the future Pedro Park in downtown St. Paul on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“There’s not too many things cooler than a brand new park,” said St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the 0.87-acre park, which will fill the area previously occupied by the public safety annex building and, in years past, the Pedro’s Luggage and Brief Case Center.

“Parks are proven to benefit the property values around it,” Carter said. “Parks are proven to benefit the health and wellness of the people who live in the community. Parks are proven to create jobs, to create economic activity, to create livelihood and vibrancy in the community, and we’re excited to make sure that this neighborhood right here has access to all of those benefits.”

Julie Prince, chair of the Friends of Pedro Park, said her group worked closely with the city and the St. Paul Parks Conservancy on the project, and that resident surveys completed over the past four years were taken into account for the final design.

“It’s happening today because you guys care about your community,” said Prince, addressing the audience.

The $6.9 million for design and construction includes state bonding dollars, city general funds, private fundraising and funding from the city’s new 1% “Common Cent” sales tax, which was approved by voters last November.

The city’s newest park is expected to include a picnic shelter, cafe tables, seating, a dog run, play area, gardens, plaza space, tree plantings and open lawn area directly across from Lunds & Byerlys and down the street from the former St. Joseph’s Hospital.

A long road

Neighbors, many of them senior residents of the Pointe and City Walk condominiums, had rallied since at least the mid-1990s for a park in the center of the Fitzgerald neighborhood, roughly bounded by Jackson Street and the former St. Joseph’s Hospital, as well as Interstate 94 and Seventh Street.

The Fitzgerald Park “Park at the Heart” concept had been included in the St. Paul Riverfront Corp.’s master plans for the area in 1997, and then the city’s comprehensive plan in 2006.

When the longstanding Pedro’s Luggage and Brief Case Center was torn down in 2011, the Pedro family gifted the underlying 0.45 acres of land to the city on one condition — that it become greenspace within five years. Given a hefty backlog in citywide parks maintenance, city officials debated how best to move the project forward, but little came of it beyond a half-acre “urban flower field” planted in the recessed earth in 2014.

At a loss for how to renovate and maintain a new block-length, two-thirds block or even a half-block park, then-St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s attention turned in 2017 to converting the neighboring public safety annex building into modern office space and bringing as many as 200 permanent jobs downtown. During his first campaign for mayor, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter seemed to embrace the idea of a full-sized park, but once in office, changed his mind and agreed to work with the Ackerberg development group on the office plan.

Neighbors balked, criticizing the city for allowing Pedro Park to wither, on paper, into what they described as a glorified office lawn.

“They call it an ‘urban flower field.’ I call it a dump,” said Marilyn Pitera, one of the last members of the Pedro family, interviewed in 2018. “I’m not proud of it. I’m ashamed of it. I’m ashamed my name is attached to that piece of land.”

Greenspace badly needed

Then came legal action against the city filed by Pitera and a group of downtown residents, a pandemic, and a national shift to remote work. Before long, Ackerberg had pulled out, and both the city and neighborhood residents were left where they had started, with little more than a handful of lawn chairs situated around a decorative mural on the side of the public safety annex building. The annex building was demolished in 2023.

Taking the mic at Tuesday’s groundbreaking, state Sen. Sandy Pappas said she was overjoyed the day she received a phone call from Parks and Rec Director Andy Rodriguez informing her that the state’s $6 million in contributions toward a new North End Community Center had freed up an equivalent amount of city general funds and city bond funds for Pedro Park.

Pappas, who has lived downtown for 15 years, called greenspace badly needed in the area.

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