By Jon Kerr
Mayor Norm Coleman’s proposed riverfront ballpark may not yet have been
publicly unveiled. But Richard Wolfgramm and Pat Gleeson certainly have some insight on
what it - and other proposed riverfront stadiums - could look like.
The downtown St. Paul architects have spent much of the past decade as sort of the unofficial designers-in-waiting for a major league view of the Mississippi - or at least a Saintly one. From a minor league baseball stadium to a soccer field (on each side of the river) to a Twins ballfield design hastily drawn up less than two years ago to put political pressure on Minneapolis’ lagging riverfront stadium plans, the pair have been willing and able to put their lances (or steno-pens) to royal service.
“It really got started with the St. Paul Saints,” said Wolfgramm, referring to a 1993 drawing that envisioned an approximately 10,000-seat stadium on the West Side riverfront between the Wabasha and Robert street bridges. “The Mayor and Mike Veeck were really interested in it for awhile, until Veeck got cold feet. But that design led to other things.”
The lure of the former Amhoist site, since owned by the St. Paul Housing and Redevelopment Authority and tantalizingly located just across the river from City Hall, soon brought other calls for architectural renderings. Included was another ballpark design commissioned in 1995 by then-Riverfront Corporation head Dick Broeker that aimed even higher.
“He had us throw in a soccer stadium and a farmer’s market,” noted Gleeson of the 1995 design, which called for an entire sports and commercial complex which straddled the Chicago-NW railroad line and extended from the riverfront virtually to Plato Boulevard on the south. The heady concept barely saw the light of day.
“This was dead about three hours later when Jerry Trooien went down and deposited his $5 million,” said Wolfgramm, referring to JLT Properties’ struggle to keep ownership over most of the proposed site. Despite city efforts to foreclose on his riverfront property, Trooien found financial means to stay in place.
Next on the
agenda for the architectural team was a lengthy effort on behalf of a 20,000-seat
Lowertown soccer stadium serving the Minnesota Thunder. To be located on top of the U.S.
Post Office parking lot off Kellogg Boulevard, the stadium would have overlooked the
Mississippi
The concept has since been abandoned by the Thunder and several major backers in the face of financial obstacles and opposition from some neighbors. But Wolfgramm and Gleeson remain committed to a smaller version of the stadium which they argue could serve community needs.
The rumored possibility that the area might be the site of a larger, baseball stadium draws disdain from the pair.
“It’s difficult to imagine putting the Metrodome on that site,” said Gleeson.
But when the Mayor’s office again came calling, the architects were able to find room on the West Side riverfront for a 40,000 plus-seat baseball facility.
“Eric Mische came and commissioned us to make a design to take up and carry around at the Legislature. ...It was a brilliant idea by the Mayor and Gov. (Arne) Carlson to get the City of Minneapolis off dead center,” recalls Wolfgramm. “Coleman was serious. But it was really a collaboration to get Minneapolis moving on the stadium.”
In fact, the architects borrowed directly from Ellerbe Beckett’s drawings of a proposed Minneapolis’ retractable-roof ballpark. But they insist their stadium concept would have been functional on the St. Paul riverfront.
“It’s design is accessible to Robert and the Wabasha Bridge and other available parking,” said Gleeson. “It has good sightlines for baseball and for the river. It did have merit.”
The
Mayor’s Office hasn’t since contacted Wolfgramm or Gleeson about ballpark plans,
reportedly turning to Ellerbe Beckett for recent design ideas.
“I was astonished that (the ballpark) was one of his seven points of discussion in the State of the City,” said Wolfgramm of Mayor Coleman. “A lot of ideas have come and gone. ... And the Northeast Quadrant or other areas hadn’t even come to light at the time we last talked.
“But it merits discussion,” he concluded. “It may be controversial. But it deserves additional scrutiny.”