When Julie Printz was living in the Penfield apartments in downtown St. Paul, she would look out her window at efforts to create Pedro Park across the street.
The park space was plagued by delays and disagreements and has been in the works for decades. At the time, it was mostly a blank space.
Printz wondered, “Why isn’t this like other parks in St. Paul?”
So Printz did what she usually does. She set out to find out.
“I’m interested in the public realm,” says Prinz. “I want to know how cities run, how things happen, how things came to be.
“I’m geeky that way,” says Printz, 60, a software engineer who has been with Thrivent Financial in St. Paul for 19 years.
Printz was elected to the board of the CapitolRiver Council, one of 17 citizen councils that represent neighborhood interests. CapitolRiver is St. Paul’s downtown district.
Pedro (pronounced PEA-dro) Park at 10th and Robert streets is expected to open in 2025. But the urban park, which is being built on the site of the former Pedro Luggage and Briefcase Center and a nearby public safety annex building, has taken a long time to sprout as a green space.
Printz has worked with Friends of Pedro Park and the CapitolRiver Council to help make it happen. As the park languished – partially completed and looking abandoned, Printz recruited people to help and worked with the city.
She says there was “really good involvement” with the city, but “people in the neighborhood felt they had been forgotten.”
The initial plot of land was sold to the city by the Pedro Luggage family, with the stipulation it be used to honor Carl Pedro, an Italian immigrant who first opened a shoe repair business in downtown St. Paul in the early 1900s. The business grew and gained prominence on the corner lot, but closed in 2008.
The Pedro building was demolished in 2011, and plans for the site underwent years of discussion. Printz says the neighborhood working group she formed looked at developer plans for the annex building next to the park. The annex needed more than $1 million in improvements, she says.
“Our recommendation was they needed to make a decision about that building,” she says. The developer backed out and the annex was demolished and added to the Pedro Park space.
A temporary Urban Flower Field had “blossomed” on the Pedro site in 2014, with swirling designs and pathways.
In 2023, the city council approved $6 million for park development. Construction began in July 2024.
During the park’s growing pains, volunteers were eager to beautify the space, Printz says. Nearly 30 gardeners planted and tended the area last year.
Printz says she’s “more an organizer and not a gardener,” so she helped organize the plots and caretakers. “There were so many beginning gardeners that we decided to make it a learning space,” she says.
A new-gardener manual is in the works for Friends of Pedro Park, a group that has new life now that the park is finally coming to life.
“It was really hard to engage people in a Friends group when there was no park,” Printz says. “For a long period of time, there was nothing to do.”
Printz says her lack of gardening skills is one reason she’s happy she and her husband, Greg Berger, and their dog, Molly, live in a townhouse in Lowertown. They raised their family (two children, now 27 and 25 years old) in a single-family home with a yard in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood and moved downtown six years ago.
Printz says her term on the CapitolRiver Council ends next fall. “That’s not where I want to put my energy,” she says.
Printz wants to “organize and activate downtown residents,” she says. She’d like the area to feel more like a single-family residence neighborhood instead of a group of buildings. She’s already organized a growing social group called “Lowertown Ladies.”
There’s interest in events and activities, Printz says. “People want to be more connected.”
Printz acknowledges that downtown St. Paul is struggling with businesses and buildings closing. But she sees potential.
“Why are people so grumpy?” she asks.
Efforts by the St. Paul Downtown Improvement District to make downtown cleaner and safer are paying off, says Printz, who “walks everywhere.”
Minnesota’s capital city needs more amenities downtown, Printz says. Pedro Park – with a picnic shelter, cafe tables, a dog run, play area, gardens, plaza space, tree plantings and open lawn area – is a positive place to start.
The city’s newest park is an opportunity for volunteers to “connect with other people, enjoy the outdoors, beautify downtown and maybe dig in the dirt,” Printz says.