Something about empty buildings attracts vandals. The old Bethany Nursing Home (Twin City Gardens) at 2309 Hayes St. NE is a case in point. So is the former Bremer Bank building at 2401 Lowry Ave. NE, just inside the St. Anthony border.
The building was purchased for $400,000 in April by the Tibyan Community Center. Since then, it’s been vandalized seven times in two months, suffering $20,000 in damages. It’s a situation the Muslim school hopes to remedy by occupying it as soon as possible.
They’ll have to wait. The St. Anthony City Council voted Tuesday, Sept. 24, to study the matter more closely.
It goes back to a complicated three-way land swap made between the city and Bremer Bank in 2021. Bremer agreed to purchase the city-owned property at 2654 Kenzie Terrace, known as “the old bowling alley site.” In return, city received a remnant parcel of land at the Stinson Blvd. end of Kenzie Terrace, big enough to hold a “Welcome to St. Anthony” sign.
The city approved a planned use development (PUD) at the old Bremer site that would allow Interstate Development to construct 76 affordable apartment units, if they met 14 conditions set forth by the St. Anthony Planning Commission. Bremer built a new bank at the old bowling alley site. Interstate’s construction plans fell through.
One of the problems with the old Bremer site is polluted soil and ground water. Before the bank building was built, the land once held a gas station and a dry cleaning operation. The soil beneath the building is contaminated with perchlorethylate (perc), also known as tetrachloroethylene, a chemical once used for dry cleaning clothing. Moving the soil around for construction would release vapors currently tamped down by the building.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency monitors the air within the bank for vapors rising from the soil. Unfortunately, during one of the recent vandalism incidents, the computer that monitors indoor air quality was stolen, compromising the building’s indoor air quality. A representative from Stantec, an environmental consultant, said a new vapor intrusion system would have to be installed, and the leaders of Tibyan are ready to do so. Stantec worked with Interstate when the developer sought to build on the site, and is familiar with the pollution problem there.
Tibyan Center is presently housed in South Minneapolis. Speaking for the school, Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN), said it had outgrown its space. Tibyan is an internationally-acclaimed program that teaches Quranic learning (students have won international honors for memorizing the Quran), and offers youth enrichment and instruction in coding and programming.
Tibyan Center originally applied for a PUD as a youth education center/multi-purpose space, but sought to amend the PUD to include using the former bank lobby as a mosque, existing rooms as classrooms and adding administrative offices. In the future, the center would also lease to others 15 commercial office spaces in the building, putting the building on St. Anthony’s tax rolls.
The mosque would accommodate 400 worshippers. Peak traffic around the building would be noon to 2 p.m. on Fridays, when services are held. Otherwise, Hussein said, traffic in and out of the parking lot would be negligible. Classes are usually held in the evening after school, or on the weekend in two blocks starting at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Most students are dropped off by their parents, and often arrive in carpools.
“The main function will be for the students,” Hussein said. “The mosque is just part of it.”
He also said the school was interested in working with the community, citing recent use of the parking lot as a staging area for the VillageFest parade. “Being a good neighbor is part of our religious practice,” he said. “If someone comes into the mosque, we don’t ask if they are Muslim. The mosque is space for community.”
City council members seemed to get hung up on two issues: The polluted soil, and whether the PUD for affordable housing still applied or was enforceable. City Attorney Jim Lindgren told them they could accept the resolution presented by the City Planning Commission or present a reason to deny the modified PUD. They voted to delay an answer until Oct. 22.