St. Paul developer has big plans for Victoria and Grand

St. Paul developer Ari Parritz, who helped transform the former Dixie’s on Grand into the 80-unit luxury Kenton House on Grand project at Grand Avenue and St. Albans Street, has plans to remake the slumping northeast corner of Grand and Victoria.

While there are no formal plans yet for the site, Parritz said he envisions a development that will bring commercial energy and housing density to a part of the intersection that was once vibrant but is now tired.

“I have been interested in finding a new development on Grand that can further the healthy transformation of the avenue,” said Parritz, whose Afton Park Development has a contract to buy several lots at the site.

Under development firm Reuter Walton, Parritz was project lead for Kenton House. Reuter Walton is not a part of the Victoria project, Parritz said, although he is working with former Dixie’s on Grand owner Peter Kenefick. Parritz said he envisions a project similar to Kenton House, which replaced the single-story building that housed Dixie’s, Saji-Ya and Emmett’s Public House with a five-story building featuring four floors of apartments above street-level commercial space.

Parritz said he is working with the city to rezone the Victoria site to “T3″ — a traditional neighborhood designation that allows mixed-use housing and commercial development. The corner is home to the Victoria Crossing East Mall, two surface parking lots and a private home that was used as a business.

Parritz said he plans for the site to “have some unique differences” from Kenton House, but he’s not yet ready to outline them. Nor would he say how many apartments he hopes to build there.

He did promise robust engagement with the surrounding community and expects to close on the purchase of the properties in the spring of 2025, with development plans — and public engagement — afterward.

At Victoria East Mall last Thursday morning, a couple of people sat in the mall’s dim corridor. There are three tenants, Juut Salon, Paper Source and Gather Eatery & Bar, a restaurant that replaced the longtime Billy’s on Grand. The restaurant was dark. It was scheduled to open at 3.

Inside Paper Source, which has been in the mall since 2016, senior sales lead Carrie Helman-Menard said foot traffic has changed at the mall.

“It is quiet,” she said. “This street was a lot different even, you know, six years ago. The hobby stores down that way closed. Salut, closed. Anthropolgie, closed. J Crew, et cetera. There were a lot more people bustling, shopping.”

Grand, she said, can be that way again, but it “needs businesses. Needs people.”

A new development at Grand and Victoria could be just what’s needed, she said.

“People will come,” she said, pointing to her store’s customers continuing to walk through Paper Source’s door. “They get excited that something’s here. People are grateful. They’ll come in here and say, ‘Oh, my god, I’m so glad you’re here.’ So that feels good. A lot of people want that hustle and bustle back.”

Simon Taghioff, president of the Summit Hill Association Board, said Parritz made “an information only” presentation to the board earlier this month. Parritz, he said, shared “a lot of optimism in how it could transform that corner in a positive way.”

The board took no action and has not arrived at an official position on the proposal, Taghioff said.

“We know that Grand Avenue does need reinvestment, and we welcome mixed-use development,” he said, adding that the corner of Grand and Victoria represents “both an opportunity and responsibility.”

But Taghioff cautioned Parritz that the Summit Hill Board and the surrounding community are going to have higher expectations for his project than what ended up being delivered by Kenton House on Grand. In the months before that project was approved by a split City Council vote, developers shared plans for a gathering space at the front of the building.

Renderings showed an open, plaza-type space with a sculpture. It was easy to imagine people gathering there over the holidays. Grand Avenue, he said, didn’t have anything like that.

Now? An area the neighborhood hoped would be a public space at 695 Grand Av. is basically a patio for the restaurants’ paying customers, Taghioff said.

He cautioned Parritz to keep any promises he makes. This project’s fate “could be tied to that,” Taghioff said. If so, a redeveloped Grand and Victoria “could be the jumping off point for the rest of the avenue.”