St. Paul City Council cuts $50,000 from funding for Justus Ramsey House project

The St. Paul City Council voted Wednesday to reduce the amount of funding allocated to take down and store the historic Justus Ramsey House, which is deteriorating.

The council, acting as the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, voted 6 to 1 in favor of the resolution, which lowered the $84,000 in funding the city approved last week for the project to $34,000.

Council President Amy Brendmoen explained that the housing authority initially had some confusion and received differing information about what it would cost to disassemble the building and store it.

She said the council was interested in setting aside emergency funding to deconstruct and store it, but not enough to rebuild it somewhere else.

"Right now our focus is [to] safely remove the building, put it on some pallets and store it safely," Brendmoen said Wednesday evening.

Someone could propose the council vote again in the future to set aside non-emergency funding for rebuilding it, she noted.

Council Member Mitra Jalali was the lone no vote.

"It doesn't sit right with me, the way it has moved forward," Jalali said during the meeting, adding she did not feel comfortable with approving the funding as a forgivable loan.

Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represents the area, first introduced a resolution last week that would have spent $115,000 for the project.

Last week Brendmoen and Council Members Nelsie Yang and Chris Tolbert said they're uncomfortable with subsidizing the rebuild if it would go to a private home for a St. Paul couple. Don Kohler and Rita Dalbec said they would put more than $300,000 of their own money into restoring the limestone structure farther west on W. 7th Street.

That led to Noecker to amend the amount to $84,000, saying the building's deteriorating condition requires them to take it down now.

The cottage is the oldest surviving limestone house in St. Paul, and is listed on three historic registers. Becoming a private home is a better outcome for the Justus Ramsey House than demolition, Noecker has said.

Brendmoen said she is not aware of anything holding back the deconstruction work from commencing.

Star Tribune reporter James Walsh contributed to this article.