St. Paul armored car company to move to East Side

Source: Pioneer Press, St.文件倉 Paul, Minn.Aug. 27--The St. Paul Port Authority is selling more than two acres of land off East Seventh Street to developer Jim Stolpestad for $1, provided that he bring at least 70 living wage jobs to the site.Stolpestad has maintained that he's ready to do just that. An armored car company is poised to move off University and Raymond avenues in the West Midway industrial area and onto the Beacon Bluff campus, a block east of the former 3M headquarters in St. Paul. That will bring 45 employees to East Seventh Street in the near term, and an additional 25 employees over the next 10 years."It's the third new business to wind up on the old 3M property," said Port Authority President Louis Jambois. "We're squeezing a very good business into a very irregular-shaped plot, and we're happy about that."HealthEast Medical Transportation and East Side Family Medical Services have also opened on the 46-acre former 3M campus, and Baldinger Bakery operates nearby.Officials with the St. Paul Port Authority are calling Loomis Armored's decision to stay within the city as it expands a small but encouraging step forward for the gradual redevelopment of the old 3M land and the land around it. It also frees up a prime location along University Avenue and the Central Corridor Light Rail transit line, or Green Line, which is growing increasingly residential.According to the Port Authority staff report, Loo存倉is is "logistically constrained by the increased development pressure and density" along the Central Corridor line and has expressed interest "in a location with better logistical advantages."On Tuesday, the board of the Port Authority approved the sale of 2.66 acres of land along East Seventh between Cypress and Earl streets to IAF Beacon II, a company owned by Stolpestad. The land will house a new 15,000-square-foot cash management facility built specifically for Loomis Armored.As part of the deal, Stolpestad's company will reimburse the Port Authority for $75,000 in redevelopment costs that the Port incurred readying the land for sale. The Port Authority, in turn, will reimburse his company for $30,000 in costs related to a storm water pond project."The buyer has agreed to make a good faith effort to ensure that at least 70 percent of all newly-hired employees be residents of the city," reads the agreement. The agreement requires current employees to be paid at least $10.25 per hour, though most employees already earn about $17 per hour."All new hires on that site will start at at least $11 an hour, and most of them will start well above that," Jambois said.Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at .twincities.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉