St. Paul moving ahead with plans to tear down Hamline Midway library

Despite a successful effort by preservationists to win national historic status for St. Paul's Hamline Midway Library, Mayor Melvin Carter on Thursday said the city is moving ahead with plans for a full teardown and replacement.

In a statement, Carter said an $8.1 million replacement of the 92-year-old library remains the preferred option for the city, as well as a majority of the more than 3,000 people who participated in monthslong engagement efforts.

"Our Hamline-Midway neighbors have clearly expressed their desire for a brand new, state-of-the-art public library," Carter said. "We remain resolved to deliver on that promise."

But a group of neighborhood champions for the beloved library, also known as the Henry Hale Memorial Library, remains staunchly opposed to demolition. On Jan. 30, the group's efforts to fight City Hall resulted in the building at 1558 Minnehaha Av. being placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Barbara Bezat, who helped research the building's historic significance, said she's hopeful the designation will slow the city's roll.

"We have hopes that [historic designation] will help get even more citizens involved in efforts to save it, that even more people who got involved last spring and summer begin to be energized about writing letters," said Bezat, part of a coalition of preservationists called Renovate 1558. "It's tough to do rallies in the winter."

In October, St. Paul officials released final building designs and floor plans for Hamline Midway and two other libraries — Hayden Heights and Riverview. Hamline Midway is the only one of the three where a teardown and replacement is recommended.

Like Hamline Midway, Riverview has two levels. But rather than demolition, Riverview will be renovated and expanded. The redesigned library, which has been designated as a local historic resource, will have all its public functions on a main level — something that officials said is not possible at Hamline Midway.

Library officials referred questions to Carter's office. Kamal Baker, a Carter spokesman, said the design for the new building is the result of extensive community input through open houses, meetings and surveys.

In October, interim St. Paul library director Barb Sporlein said remodeling Hamline Midway is neither feasible nor cost-effective. Its two levels make it hard to make the facility accessible to the public and safe for staff, she said. Funding for a new building has already been approved and officials intend to begin demolition this spring.

But City Council Member Jane Prince said LSE Architects designed multiple plans — one replacing and one renovating Hamline Midway. Like Riverview, Hamline Midway can also be added to and reconfigured to improve safety and accessibility, Prince said. But library officials, she said, have championed replacement from the start.

When asked why officials support Riverview's renovation and Hayden Heights' rebuild, but insist Hamline Midway be replaced, she said: "That would be the question I would ask the mayor. I think [renovation] is very doable."

City Council Member Mitra Jalali, who represents the area and has expressed support for replacing Hamline Midway, declined to comment.

Tom Goldstein, a Midway resident and onetime candidate for City Council and mayor, said he hopes national historic status can "change the narrative" on tearing down a beloved building.

"We're hoping that it will give the city pause about its plans," he said. "We haven't seen any indication that the city is willing to think about this project any differently."

Goldstein and Bezat said the city can build a new library elsewhere and sell the current facility to be repurposed. There is precedent, Goldstein said: After the city built the Arlington Heights library on the East Side, the area's old library was sold. It's now the East Side Freedom Library.

"It takes leadership to do that," Goldstein said.

Bezat, an architectural historian, praised the work to win historic designation and said she hopes the city will be convinced to drop its efforts to replace it. While historic designation alone won't save the library, she said, it might spur protests — as with recent efforts to save the 170-year-old Justus Ramsey House.

"I believe that we will save it," Bezat said. "And if the mayor and council decide they're going to do a midnight run, people will be standing out there to prevent it just as they were with the Ramsey house."