Saint Paul By Bike

July 19, 2025

25 Miles

Hamline-Midway, Frogtown, Payne-Phalen, Dayton’s Bluff

I spent a big chunk of time on the near East Side on this ride. The main attraction there was a former Payne-Phalen church and the couple who live there. Of course, much more caught my eye along the way.

Hamline-Midway and Edmund’s unusual door

From my bike travels, I’ve learned Saint Paulites are a creative lot. Whether it’s through gardens, decorations, color, materials or a combination, people make a statement with these choices. The canary yellow front door at 1438 Edmund Avenue is a case in point.

Frogtown

An interesting little building hugs the corner of Edmund Avenue at Kent Street. It is home of the SafeCity Project’s Community Outreach Center. The center endeavors to reduce crime by breaking down barriers between residents, businesses, community groups and the police in Frogtown.

Payne-Phalen

Metro Transit operates the Twin Cities area mass transit system. For decades, it had a large maintenance garage in the Midway. Located off Snelling and Interstate 94, where Allianz Field stands today, it was built for streetcars. When those were scrapped, the building housed the buses that replaced them. The obsolete 90+year old facility closed in 2001, succeeded by the gleaming, modern garage on L’Orient Street in Payne-Phalen.

The maintenance facility is wedged – and I mean wedged – into a roughly triangular spot of land barely larger than the garage. As you can see from the diagram, it is surrounded on two sides by railroad tracks and I-35E to the west.

Another parking ramp

In an earlier post, I remarked that most parking ramps are located in Downtown Saint Paul. I’ve realized that is incorrect. While many are Downtown, several, including the two-level HealthPartners employee ramp, are scattered around other neighborhoods.

East Side Commons

The large East Side Commons complex extends north along Bradley Street from Whitall for about three-quarters of a block. The pleasingly designed, tidy townhomes and apartments date to 1991.

Both apartments—featuring efficiency, one, and two bedrooms, and townhomes—with two, three, and four bedroom units are available to rent. Residents must meet income restrictions described as “low to moderate” by the owner.

Before construction of East Side Commons, the property seems to have been undeveloped. Oddly, many of the single family homes on the same block were completed between 1890 and 1911.

Once a church, now a home and more

The catchy billboard featuring a partially veiled puppy is legendary around Case Avenue and Edgerton Street. Although the 8’ x 8’ art piece graced the busy corner for just two months, people still talk about it. I encountered it, and Case Edgerton Studios, for the first time, in July 2023.

Today, on another ride to the area, I met Jessie and Scott. They are the dynamic and creative resident/owners of 580 Case Avenue. I discovered the remarkable story of the conversion from long-time church to a  home/art studio/gathering space/cat sanctuary.

The move to Saint Paul

Jessie and Scott wanted to return to the Twin Cities from Kansas City. They had been teaching and working as artists there for more than 20 years. Their parents live in Minnesota. Their son, Tino, was studying at the University of Minnesota. It seemed like the perfect time to return.

They originally planned to purchase a duplex or a storefront in Minneapolis, but instead, found themselves in Saint Paul. How did two people from the western Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth land in Saint Paul?

“ I think we got priced out of Minneapolis,” Scott said. “We just kept expanding the range of where we could live. As long as we could get to our parents’ house and get to where our son was going to school. The further out we looked, the more options there were.”

Jessie added, “ The first time I started looking around here, we found another church that was for sale in West St. Paul.” They didn’t purchase that one. However, it inspired them to look for other houses of worship on the market.

Scott browsed a website listing commercial properties for sale. He spotted some Payne Avenue storefronts, and below them, the Contender for the Faith Church at 580 Case Avenue.

Jessie and Scott suspected the building had major structural or mechanical problems as it had been on the market for a long time. Apparently the opposite was true; a goodly number of people toured and considered purchasing it.

The impediment turned out to be the lack of a ground floor entrance. Visitors have to walk up stairs to reach the entrance. Once inside, they must walk down a half flight of stairs. Bottom line, almost any non-residential use of the building required an elevator. “It was like $400,000 or something crazy,” said Jessie, “So that’s why no one had bought it.”

Scott’s reaction? “ I was just struck by the fact that we could actually buy a church and it had the pews and the carpeting and the weird stuff hanging on the walls.”

Lighting is is of the utmost importance to artists and an abundance of it streams through the many windows. Jessie said, “The light was beautiful. Like that’s, that’s one of the main things, the space and then how the light comes in.”

Jessie explained that Scott’s uncle, a former real estate appraiser, joined them on the showing. “He knows his stuff and he went around and when they weren’t looking, he sort of punched holes in the drop ceiling and looked everywhere.” He proclaimed the structure as ‘fine.’

After the showing, Jessie and Scott stopped at Cadence Coffee and Records, three blocks away on Payne Avenue. “ They were playing King Crimson, which is my favorite band.” And while Jessie didn’t say it, she inferred it was a sign that they were destined to buy the former church. Jessie explained, “ Okay, we can live here. Like there’s a cool coffee shop and we’ve got a church. And Saint Paul’s not that far away (from Plymouth), right?”

She added, “ Minneapolis, and Uptown, where we always lived, I love it, still. But, you know, things have been a little bit gentrified here and there, but it’s still awesome. And this is definitely not gentrified.”

“ This is the opposite of gentrified here on the East Side,” Scott said, which pleases both of them.

The purchase and renovation

They purchased the church in 2021, while living in Kansas City and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The City of Saint Paul needed about a year to approve the necessary permits that allowed the renovation.

“ We had asbestos on the tiles underneath the carpet, so we had to get that removed.” And Scott added, they hired a company to gut all the ceilings, floors and much of the basement. “It was all plaster lath so we had to get rid maybe like six dumpsters full of just stuff. We just removed tons of stuff before we even started construction.”

Having remodeled previous homes, Scott undertook the bulk of the renovation himself. They hired professionals for the electrical, plumbing and determining how to remove the 10 foot high drop ceiling. “ This is twice the size of our house in Kansas City, so if you need sheet rock, you need twice as much in this case, I dunno, 600 sheets or something like that,” Scott explained. “We sheet-rocked the whole ceiling and walls and everything. It was a lot of work.” Fortunately, a neighbor loaned them scaffolding which they used for about two years, which was hugely helpful.

As is often true, the original renovation plan required revisions, Scott declared. “We bought the church, but we were living in Kansas City, so we had drawings and pictures and we’re trying to work with the architects to figure out what would be the best. Until you’re like in the space and living in the space, it’s hard to imagine what it’s gonna look like. So we did a lot of editing.”

Modifications included relocating the stairway between the basement and main level, reconfiguring some bookshelves, fashioning extensions at the top of a couple walls to improve light control and installing new structural supports. The structural beams were needed to pass the inspection and prepare for additional work. Jessie revealed, “ The next phase would be a third level up there. And to bring the steeple back.”

Stained glass

A large stained glass window proved to be the one major discovery they made during renovations, Scott said. “ As soon as we signed the papers, we came over here and I took a hammer to the wall and started taking the sheet rock off. I knew there was stained glass back there.” Jessie added, “We could see from the outside; you could see that something had been boarded up.  And it (the stained glass) was still in the wall, which was awesome.”

Some of the church’s stained glass windows were gone. When gardening, they often stumble across pieces of colorful glass, giving them the impression that, at one time, stained glass windows were more plentiful.

Meanwhile, they continue improvements indoors and out. Adding a deck and constructing an outdoor shelter for creating art are priorities.

The artwork

The discussion passed from construction to their artwork. “We both work from observation specifically. We’re like perceptual painters,” explained Jessie. “We’re looking at something. That’s why the light is so important, not just to see the painting, but because we’re setting up sort of still lives. And I do a lot of figurative work and portraits, but the still lives are more focused on creating a figure within it.”

Many of Jessie’s paintings are long-term projects. “I usually have maybe like 10 to 15 things going on at once that are paintings and then drawings.”

Scott works much differently and more quickly, completing a painting within two to three months. “ I have a table over there in the corner where and lots of junk that I’ve been collecting, and I set up a little table flow of junk and paint it.”

Scott also paints landscapes. His technique is called plein air painting, which is simply painting outdoors. For the past year he’s brought an easel and his paints to a spot on Round Lake in Phalen Regional Park, just west of Lake Phalen.

The Artboard

The Artboard is what the couple dubbed the former church sign, It displays an 8’ x 8’ painting, print or photograph that changes every two months or so. The first Artboard display went up for a 2021 festival called Solidarity Street Gallery. Artist Juan Parker’s 4’ x 8’ painting took up but half the space of the old church signs.

Jessie now has Artboard artists booked about one year in advance. Meanwhile, every couple of months neighbors eagerly await the debut of the next piece of work.

Artist camps

The space to host collaborative projects is one reason Scott and Jesse purchased a one-time church. Twice a year they organize a camp for a couple dozen former students, professors and artists, Jessie explained. “ We are calling it winter camp and summer camp. We’ve done it now three or four times and it’s a full week.”

Scott went on to say, “ We’ll be drawing, painting, and drawing for a week and then put all the work up, kind of like an exhibition.”

“ We’re gonna have a model out in the yard,” said Jessie. “We just built our fence along Edgerton, ’cause she’ll be nude and it’s totally private out there. Every morning for three hours we’re gonna work from the model outside.

And then every afternoon for three hours, we come in here and work from another model.” In the evening, they had more studio time, a communal dinner and the chance to go to a museum, a beach or other Twin Cities-area sight.

“ What’s unique here is that we’re out of our studio and like Jesse was saying, we have this one thing that we’re looking at, like a model, and then how do we each interpret that model, what do we do with it, and what materials do we use?”

Becoming part of the neighborhood

Pedestrians, vehicles and bikers frequent the area near Case and Edgerton. The former church sits on a corner of the busy intersection, across the street from the well-used Wilder playground. That gives Jessie and Scott frequent chances to meet and get to know neighbors.

Both repeatedly expressed a sincere fondness for their neighbors. Jessie described them as  “super cool, super helpful, friendly” and “the most amazing community.”

They’ve become close to local business owners and area artists. “We were like already part of the art community, you know, like a year before we even moved up here,” according to Scott.

 An interaction Scott recalled warmly involved a group of kids who walked by as he worked on the fence. “They were really polite and they said, ‘Can we eat some (raspberries)?,'” which are among the plants Scott and Jessie planted along the fence. “‘Yeah, this is for you guys, help yourself.’ And I warned them about the thorns and then like five minutes later they came back like, ‘Can we have more?'”

Jessie mentioned a since-dismissed concern they had about purchasing the building. “ We thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re coming into this neighborhood.’ We were moving into this well-known church that, they wanted to leave this space. And we thought that might not be so welcome, but it was exactly the opposite. And you know, some people have come by and said that ‘you’re doing everything right.’ That was a really good comment.”

Scott and Jessie talked about how passersby frequently show appreciation for their public art and property improvements. There have been times, said Scott, when while working outside people drive by and, “They’re just screaming out their windows, ‘Thanks!'”

Jessie reflected on a recent brief interaction with a car “packed with people looking tough” playing loud music. “ They’re like, ‘Thank you so much. Nature loves you!'” Jessie’s reaction to herself was, “‘That’s so sweet.'”

Random Payne-Phalen sights

After the tour and long conversation with Jessie and Scott, I continued riding in Payne-Phalen.

The triangle house in Dayton’s Bluff

An atypical house populates the southeast corner of 3rd Street East and Gotzian Street. The novel story behind the triangular home at 1250 3rd Street East involves landowner Bill Fasbender and his neighbors. They were unhappy he wanted to build a home on the empty lot he owned.

Fasbender’s lot was triangular because of the angle at which 3rd and Gotzian intersected. He needed a variance from the City of Saint Paul to build a conventional square or rectangular home on the lot. However, neighbors opposed the variance, at least partially because they’d lose access to the empty lot. Fasbender’s request was rejected. Rather than give up, he designed and built the home in a shape that needed no variance-a triangle.

Third or 3rd?

I’ve long pondered whether the proper way to display numerical street names on street signs is with numerals or with the number spelled out. Based on the intersection of 3rd and Griffith Streets, either (or both) is correct.

Less than a block to the south, one Griffith Avenue home was surrounded by small gardens. These gardens were filled with purple, pink, red, yellow, orange and white flowers.

For the second ride in a row I set my sights to ride to the Greater East Side. And for the second time in a row I failed in that regard. Meeting Jessie and Scott was an awesome experience. From their hospitality and showing me their unique abode, I learned they’ve quickly created a welcoming and unique spot, open to all who pass. This proved to be far more valuable than reaching the East Side. After all, the East Side, and its stories, will still be there when I do make it.