Per Paw, left, and Ta Paw walk down Rice Street on the North End of St. Paul after grocery shopping on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Amy Brendmoen, who represents St. Paul's North End on the city council, believes her precinct has been long neglected. To alleviate that she's now pushing a "10 for the North End" list of projects in need of funding that could give the neighborhood a needed boost. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Soe Dah, left, talks on his cell as mechanics Kaw Hai, an unidentified trainee, and Khu Gay all work at SDK Auto Tek on the North End of St. Paul on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Soe, Kaw and Khu are Karen brothers Dah saiid "Eventually we'd like to have our own building." Kaw and Khu handle the mechanics and Soe handles finances in their business and says he works six days a week, 10 hours a day. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Steve Hartman, left, and Bob Ramstad get ready to leave Tin Cup, a bar and grill at 1220 Rice Street in St. Paul on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. The two have frequented the bar since it reopened five years ago on the North End of St. Paul. Originally called "Tin Cup's, the bar and grill was a 50 year Rice Street gathering spot until it closed in 2009. "We come here for the ambience," said Ramstad. The original owner wearing a checkered shirt(center) is seen holding fish in the photo on wall. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

A North End sign on Rice Street south of Larpenter in St. Paul on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Rick Del Rio delivers a mattresses to Affordable Mattress on Rice Street on the North End of St. Paul on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. He is a driver and "deliverer" with the company. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)



Randy Hegner, left, the Tin Cup's owner's brother, visits with Selena Couveau as her son Talin, 8, plays a game on his phone on Thursday, February 23, 2017. Selena dines at the Tin Cup every day for lunch, and eats there twice on Wednesday because there is bingo. "It's so comfortable; it's home," said Couveau. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

The Church of Saint Bernard, a Roman Catholic parish in the North End of St. Paul is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Habitat for Humanity will be installing 11 owner-occupied homes on Maryland Avenue on the North End of St. Paul this summer St. Paul's. North End city council member, Amy Brendmoen's other wish-list for the neighborhood highlights the cleanup of the 23-acre Willow Reserve sanctuary and a city-owned property on Maryland between Arundel and Virginia streets. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Adam Ehkeheikay loads his trunk with groceries at the North End's Double Dragon Foods on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Ehkeheikay said he was taking the groceries to a refugee family. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

When Ethan Osten and his partner went looking for a place to call home, they found St. Paul’s North End.

Osten, a graduate student in classical literature who co-chairs the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition, left his Minneapolis apartment and bought a 1940s rambler last year on Marion Street, not far from the Capitol, for thousands less than he might pay in other neighborhoods.

As a cyclist with an eye for urban planning, he blogs about the challenges of living between railroad tracks to the north and west and busy Maryland Avenue and Rice Street to the south and east, respectively.

“We love it,” said Osten, who is still figuring out how to break the ice with Hmong and Karen neighbors with limited English skills.

“It’s interesting to move to a neighborhood that has some challenges, but also some potential, and opportunities for us to get engaged in the neighborhood process,” he said.

The way Jeff Martens sees it, the North End is overdue for a heavy infusion of love and money. A lifetime resident and fourth-generation North Ender, he chafes at criticisms of the community. But he shares concerns he hears about crime and neglect.

Over the past 15 years, the neighborhood’s home-ownership rates have fallen. So have household incomes. An influx of refugees has created new opportunities, but also new needs. The streets that feed into Rice Street have always been working-class, but some fear a descent into concentrated poverty.

RELATED: Bones, unofficial steward of Rice Street, recognized in Senate proclamation

Of the city’s 17 planning districts, only Thomas-Dale, or Frogtown, has lower median home values than the North End.

A spray of bullets that left five people wounded Feb. 18 at the Stargate night club — just over the city border in Maplewood, at the intersection of Rice and Larpenteur streets — struck many residents as a last straw of sorts.

For Martens, it’s time for change.

“For decades, public and private resources have been focused in other parts of the city,” said Martens, who chairs a land-use committee for the neighborhood’s District 6 Planning Council, in a written statement. “It’s time to shift the attention to the North End.”

TEN FOR THE NORTH END!

Martens has hopes that the the “Ten for the North End!” effort — a new campaign city council member Amy Brendmoen announced in January — will funnel more resources to the neighborhood. The program calls for $10 million in public and private money to be directed at North End priorities. They include everything from mosaic murals and playground improvements to new business facades and safer intersections.

Brendmoen’s wish-list for the neighborhood highlights some projects that are already underway, such as the 11 owner-occupied homes that Habitat for Humanity will build this summer on Maryland Avenue, and the cleanup of the 23-acre Willow Reserve sanctuary, a city-owned property on Maryland between Arundel and Virginia streets.

With $500,000 in financial help from the city’s Neighborhood STAR and Invest St. Paul funds, officials broke ground Tuesday on the redevelopment of 1141 Rice St., the former location of Diva’s Bar, into the new Bangkok Thai Deli restaurant. Related Articles Neighborhood girl finds and returns chef Justin Sutherland’s stolen knife roll

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“We are seeing more and more of that,” said Chuck Repke, executive director of the North East Neighborhoods Development Corp. Repke’s agency began doing small-business loans in the Rice Street area two years ago following the closure of Sparc, the neighborhood community development corporation.

“We have seen several businesses that are spending money to improve their parking spaces. That’s a deferred maintenance dedicated to returning customers — that’s a positive mindset,” he said. “That’s something that you put out there to make yourself look good … I really view those as positive signs, as opposed to ‘I need money to fix a leak in the roof.'”

Crime in the North End has been on the decline, according to St. Paul police statistics from 2011 to 2015 (data from last year was not immediately available). Part 1 crime, which includes homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and auto theft, was down 35 percent in 2015 compared with 2011 in the North End. Quality-of-life crimes were down nearly 16 percent during that period.

Brendmoen hopes for special attention to the intersection of Rice Street and Larpenteur Avenue — the confluence of three cities, two county roads, and political districts represented by three county commissioners.

“It should be the center of everything, but it feels like the edge of nowhere,” said Brendmoen, during a city council meeting days before the shootings at Stargate.

Shelly Evans, 58, sells pull-tabs at Tin Cup's. As a kid "if we did lock our door, we hung the key right outside." pic.twitter.com/E47vVGdsRg — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) February 23, 2017

St. Paul, Maplewood and Roseville are on the verge of announcing the selection of a planning group to lead a “community visioning process” for potential redevelopment of the intersection.

For 10 hours a week, a housing resources fellow — a graduate student based in Brendmoen’s office — focuses on strategies to connect more North End homeowners and renters with resources to improve the neighborhood’s housing stock.

Beginning next month, Neighborhood Vitality fellow Margaret Jones will spend 12 months in the planning department thinking through ways to bring attention and economic development to the North End.

The “Ten for the North End!” campaign is led by the North End Development Team, a coalition of representatives from Brendmoen’s office, the District 6 planning council, the North End Business Association, the St. Paul Planning Commission, the city’s Planning and Economic Development Department, NeighborWorks Home Partners, the North East Neighborhood Development Corp. and the Ward 1 office of city council member Dai Thao.

RICE STREET RECONSTRUCTION

But those efforts are bound to be dwarfed by the reconstruction of Rice Street.

City and county officials are studying the entire length of Rice Street from University to Larpenteur avenues. Short segments of Rice Street will be fully reconstructed in 2019 and 2020. The study will help guide investments in sidewalks, bikeways, transit and the general roadway. Some 100 residents and business owners attended an open house on the project on Feb. 1.

“I certainly hope that it will (go) from a raceway to a commercial corridor where people will want to shop,” said Kirsten Libby, a North End lawyer who has served as president of the North End Business Association and co-chaired the annual Rice Street Festival.

“Rice Street has had way too many pedestrian deaths,” Libby said. “There’s 15,000 cars that use Rice Street on any given day, which is fine, if they’re doing it at 30 miles per hour. If they want to go faster, Interstate 35E is new and improved. Go over there.”

Some think of the North End as the area that immediately surrounds Rice Street, one of its most recognizable commercial thoroughfares. In fact, more than 22,000 people fill out the streets that stretch from Lexington Parkway to Westminster Street, and from Larpenteur Avenue down to the Pierce Butler Route.

Ramsey County Commissioner Janice Rettman points to the experience of seventh-, eighth- and ninth-generation North End families whose ancestors settled in the neighborhood because of its proximity to the railroads.

“It has always been a working person’s area, and proud of it,” Rettman said. “And the tapestry of the neighborhood has always been diverse. But it has struggled, because the good jobs, like the railroad jobs, no longer exist.”

Marion Klein, 94, has lived in the same North End house since age 2. "Dad had this house built I think for $700." pic.twitter.com/d8RnmRiHcH — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) February 23, 2017

A few years ago, a neighborhood profile of the North End by the Wilder Foundation’s Minnesota Compass project revealed key trends about the area, mostly culled from U.S. census data.

Not all of it was flattering.

According to the profile, home-ownership rates dropped significantly over the previous 15 years, and well over half of all households were renters. More than half of all households earned less than $35,000. In fact, median incomes dropped from over $44,000 in 2000 to $32,000 in the period studied from 2010 to 2014.

In surveys, about 23 percent of residents said they spoke English less than “very well.” The population, once heavily German, was 33 percent white, 32 percent of Asian descent, 20 percent African-American and 10 percent Latino. About 14 percent of the neighborhood population identified as disabled, compared with about 10 percent of the Twin Cities region.

BRIGHT SPOTS

But Brendmoen sees several bright spots — including the devotion inspired by unofficial neighborhood landmarks such as the longstanding Tin Cup’s restaurant and bar at Maryland Avenue and Rice Street, which hosts fundraisers for local food pantries and neighbors in need — and the twin spires of St. Bernard’s Catholic Church just south of the intersection.

And, she says, the North End has a small secret: Roughly 65 percent of the population is 35 or younger, making the neighborhood ripe for the recruitment of current and future workers.

In 2015, having outgrown its space at St. Paul College, Steamfitters/Pipefitters Local 455 opened a 100,000-square-foot training facility on L’Orient Street for their apprenticeship program, which draws 250 students at a time.

The Karen Organization of Minnesota says its members run five Karen grocery stores, an auto shop and a restaurant in the North End. New immigrants bring new energy.

“There’s just a lot of good, solid people here,” Libby said. “As the Karen and the Karenni figure things out, you’re going to see those income statistics go up again.”

If that’s true, Soe Dah may be the face of the future.

A Karen refugee from Burma, Soe Dah obtained his undergraduate degree in corporate finance from San Francisco State University a few years ago. Then he opened his own auto body shop and car hauling business on Cottage Avenue with two brothers.

“We try to do good things — do honest work here,” said Soe Dah, who now contracts or employs eight people at SKD Auto Tek. “It’s just friends and family, a small business. We transport cars throughout the United States.”

LOW HOUSING PRICES, HUGE OPPORTUNITY

Then there’s the housing, which remains relatively affordable with or without government subsidy.

While the North End has been slower to rebound from the housing crisis than most parts of St. Paul, that’s left opportunity for first-time homebuyers who appreciate the allure — and work involved — in century-old homes.

Median home values for the North End, estimated by the county to be $92,400 in January 2016, are now $102,500, an 11 percent increase.

The mix of history, affordability and easy access to downtown St. Paul called to Noel and Theresa Nix, who bought a one-story ranch house last year off Maryland Avenue, near Marydale Park and Conny’s Creamy Cone. The property was listed for less than a week.

“I think that there’s a real hunger for housing that’s in the city with access to local amenities, like a park or a local business, that isn’t going to break the bank,” Noel Nix said.

Noel, who was once a legislative aide to a St. Paul city council member, now works for a Ramsey County commissioner. His wife is a community organizer with the Summit Hill Neighborhood Association.

“We’ve had close friends from college in the neighborhood for years,” said Noel Nix, who is hoping that the area continues to evolve. “I’m more familiar with spots for beers in the neighborhood than for coffee. One of the ‘opportunities’ for the North End in my opinion is a quaint, affordable and welcoming coffee shop like Golden Thyme or Groundswell.”

Osten, the graduate student, sees a disconnect between new immigrants, older white homeowners, and younger homebuyers such as himself.

“I get the sense that there are a lot of people moving into the neighborhood right now, but there’s a lot of people who have been here for 60 years or so, and know the neighborhood as it was in the ’50s,” he said.

Eager to bridge those divides, Osten joined the neighborhood district council a few weeks ago.

“I have a lot of neighbors who are Karen or Hmong, and I barely talk to any of them, because I don’t speak Karen or Hmong,” he said. “On the district council, all but one of the 16 members is white. I think it’s a concern. I would certainly like to see more diversity on the council, not just in terms of ethnicity, but in terms of age, in terms of income.”