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The City of West St. Paul is proposing a 13-unit townhouse project at the site of a former single-family home at 424 Butler Avenue East.
Where: The 1.84-acre property is on the south side of Butler at Waterloo Avenue. It’s one house in from Highway 52 and backs up to Thompson Park.
Why: The city bought the land in early 2025 to stop developers who were interested in large, multi-family apartments. The parcel has been zoned for apartments for decades, so stopping a developer would have been difficult. Instead, the city wants to downgrade the zoning, diversify housing, and offer affordable townhomes.
What’s proposed: All 13 units have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two-stall garages. Nine of the units will be two stories with unfinished, walkout basements, and four of the units will be two-story with no basements.
- The cost of the project and the topography made single-level townhomes unfeasible.
Cost: The city hopes to break even on the project using Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA) and other sources.
- The target price for the townhouses is $400,000 each, which is considered “affordable” under the LAHA rules.
- In October, the city anticipated a $6.7 million project with a $1.7 million funding gap. LAHA funds would fill most of that gap. The city is waiting for preliminary bidding to see if they’ll be able to fully close that gap.
History: This project first came up in September 2024, with more details and a purchase agreement in October 2024, a neighbor meeting in November 2024, more planning in January 2025, updates in March 2025, and more detailed plans in October 2025.
- Note: Initial plans involved selling a small portion of the property to Dakota County to expand Thompson Park (presumably to give more of a buffer to park trails). Current plans utilize the entire property, so the park expansion would not happen.
What’s next: The project will come before the Environmental Committee on January 7, Planning Commission on January 20, and then City Council likely in February.
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Wonderful news that the council is not just once more standing by while developers proceed again to plan city housing for their exclusive profit and benefit. Sorry to read that the very well used Thompson park will not receive even a sliver of the land, as had been wisely proposed. West Saint Paul, nearly choking to death on the proliferation of apartment units, needs as many slivers of park land as possible. $400K for a multi-unit home overlooking a freeway and adjacent to its on-ramp is a distinct version of buck-fever.
When I was a teenager, this land was once a farm that had been on my trail bike route heading to the Kaposia ravine. The farmer did not like us clipping along the edge of his land and shot off what I always hoped were salt pellets, and was lucky enough never to have found out.