Imagine St. Paul a decade ago. CHS Field, the future home of the St. Paul Saints, was still under construction in Lowertown, one of the downtown communities leading the way in the city’s long-awaited population resurgence in 2014. But just a few years past the Great Recession, citywide multi-family housing construction was still in the doldrums.
The Green Line — Metro Transit’s second light-rail line — debuted that June, inspiring hopes of economic renewal amidst fears of gentrification. And cellphone footage of a Black man being tasered and arrested as he was waiting in the downtown skyway for his kids to get out of day care went viral online, like a digital preview of future flashpoints in police-community relations in the Twin Cities.
Now imagine St. Paul five years ago. Soccer fans celebrated the opening of Allianz Field, a 19,000-seat stadium in the Midway. St. Paul reached an agreement with the Ryan Cos. to develop thousands of housing units on 122 acres of land at the former site of the Ford auto manufacturing campus in Highland Park. Citywide multi-family housing construction climbed considerably.
And St. Paul today? The city has weathered a bruising pandemic, only to discover fresh challenges in the era of online shopping and remote work. Crime rates, which rose during the pandemic, appear to be stabilizing, but the population during the pandemic actually declined. By number, homeowners have regained an edge in a city that is no longer renter-majority.
Demographic changes are now firmly reflected in the youngest and most racially and ethnically diverse city council in St. Paul history. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and the St. Paul Downtown Alliance have together set a goal of growing downtown by 20,000 more residents — triple the current number — as well as 20,000 more jobs and a 20% increase in visitors relative to 2018.
There’s more worth taking into account over the past 10 years. Take a gander at 30 indicators of the state of the capital city across the past decade, compiled with the help of the city of St. Paul, Ramsey County, the St. Paul Downtown Alliance and Wilder Research’s Minnesota Compass.
Property taxes
Property taxes are up as downtown values falter: St. Paul’s citywide tax levy — the sum total of all property taxes collected in the city to fund city operations — has doubled in the past 10 years, from just over $101 million to about $202 million, not accounting for cumulative inflation across the decade (about 31%) or the 2018 shift in street maintenance fees onto property taxes.
Business advocates fear that as downtown property owners contest valuations, the amount of property tax dollars contributed from downtown could stay flat or decline, shifting more tax burden onto homeowners, renters and small businesses. Downtown accounts for 9% of the citywide tax revenue, according to the St. Paul Downtown Alliance.
Housing construction
Even a few years after the Great Recession, construction permits for St. Paul apartment buildings and other multi-family housing were still sluggish in 2014.
By 2019, they had picked up considerably, only to begin to falter after peaking in 2021, according to federal data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some have blamed high interest rates, rent control, remote work, crime trends and other economic and social uncertainty post-pandemic. HUD found a little more than 400 new housing units permitted in multi-family buildings in 2014, which climbed to 1,500 in 2019 and then fell to 1,156 in 2023.
Apartment values grow fastest
The estimated market value of all residential properties, apartment buildings and commercial/industrial properties in St. Paul rose 85% over the course of the decade, according to Ramsey County. Total values climbed from $19.1 billion in 2014 to $26.9 billion in 2019 to $35.5 billion this year. Apartment values grew fastest, more than doubling from $2.6 billion to $6.9 billion, a 167% increase. Residential values grew from $13.1 billion to $23.3 billion in that time, a 77% increase. Commercial/industrial values climbed from $3.4 billion to $5.3 billion, a 56% increase. Those numbers have not been adjusted for inflation.
The number of apartment units surge
The number of St. Paul housing units in apartment buildings has grown in the past decade, while smaller residential properties — single-family, two- and three-family houses, condos and townhomes — have stayed fairly flat. Apartment units increased 25%, from 39,200 apartments in 2014 to about 49,120 units this year, according to figures provided by Ramsey County. There were 78,520 smaller residential properties in 2014, compared to about 77,750 this year, a 1% decline. Commercial/industrial properties grew 41% from about 3,290 properties in 2014 to 4,630 properties this year.
Occupied housing
The number of occupied housing units in St. Paul grew about 14% in eight years. There was little change from 111,978 housing units in 2014 to 110,782 units in 2019, followed by an increase to 126,654 units in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. In other words, St. Paul has more occupied housing than a decade ago.
Housing costs, renters
St. Paul is no longer a renter-majority city, at least as of 2022. The percentage of housing units that are owner-occupied in St. Paul has grown from 47.2% in 2014 to 52.2% in 2019 to 53.8% in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. Renters dropped in step, from comprising 52.8% of the city in 2014, to 47.8% in 2019 and then 46.2% in 2022. That’s at least partially a function of some renters leaving during the pandemic, but homeownership has increased in the past decade, especially when interest rates fell to record lows.
Rents surge
Median gross rents in St. Paul climbed 46% from 2014 to 2022, or 18% after adjusting for inflation. However you slice it, rent went up a lot. The median gross rent in 2014 was $831 per month, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. It climbed to $1,000 per month in 2019 and $1,216 per month in 2022.
Housing cost burdens
Housing officials consider households that devote more than 30% of their income toward housing to being “housing cost-burdened.” In St. Paul, 38% of households fell into that category a decade ago, compared to 33.4% in 2019 and 37% in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Population, demographics
The pandemic put a crimp in St. Paul’s population growth, which had gained momentum after decades of foot-dragging. St. Paul was home to 298,000 people in 2014, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. That number rose to 308,000 residents in 2019, putting the city in reach of where it was in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s.
Then came the coronavirus. The city’s population fell to 303,000 by 2022, for a total growth of 2% over eight years. The Metropolitan Council calculates population a bit differently than the U.S. Census, and found that St. Paul had 310,993 residents in 2022, down 535 people from 2020.
Residents of color stay steady
St. Paul has a higher share of people of color compared to the rest of the state, but that percentage has stayed about the same in the past decade even as the BIPOC population has grown statewide. There are about 146,000 people of color living in St. Paul, comprising a little under half the population of the city, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. As a percentage of the city’s population, residents of color have gone from 48.6% in 2014, to 48.6% in 2019, to 48.1% in 2022.
Median age ticks upward
The U.S. is going grayer, and so is the capital city. The median age of a St. Paul resident in 2014 was 31.1. The median age grew to 33 in 2019 and then 34.1 in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau.
A senior surge
There’s been a sharp increase in seniors in St. Paul, as well as elsewhere throughout the country. In fact, seniors grew from comprising 20% to 24% of the city population from 2014 to 2022. Residents over age 55 comprised 59,600 city residents in 2014, and then 66,400 residents in 2019. By 2022, their population had grown to about 73,600, an increase of 23% over eight years, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Voting
Some 44.5% of registered voters cast votes in St. Paul in 2014, helping to re-elect Mark Dayton, a DFLer, as governor. In 2018, some 60% of registered St. Paul voters went to the polls, helping to elect Gov. Tim Walz, also a DFLer. Some 48.9% of registered St. Paul voters participated in the 2022 election, when Walz was re-elected, according to Wilder Research and the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office.
Jobs, income, unemployment
The number of jobs in the city had been climbing, but fell even below figures from a decade ago during the pandemic and had yet to recover as of 2022. St. Paul had 177,000 jobs in 2014, compared to 184,600 jobs in 2019. Job numbers fell to about 172,800 in 2022, an overall decline of 2% across eight years, according to Wilder Research and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
Unemployment
Unemployment figures have been a bright spot for St. Paul and Minnesota in general. The unemployment rate for St. Paul workers ages 16 to 64 was 6% in 2014, but just 2.9% in 2019. As of 2022, it was 3.2%, falling nearly by half in eight years, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Median income citywide
Adjusting for inflation, median-family incomes in St. Paul rose about 10% from 2014 to 2022. That’s the good news. And the bad? They flattened out or even dropped from 2019 to 2022, according to figures compiled by Wilder Research and the Minnesota Compass project. Family incomes were about $59,000 in 2014, $73,000 in 2019 and $65,000 in 2022.
Poverty rates decline
The percentage of households living in poverty appears to have declined in St. Paul, according to Wilder Research and figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2014, some 22% of the city’s population lived in poverty, compared to 15.9% in 2019 and 16% in 2022. The gains against poverty could be a function of rising wages, as well as low-income families looking for cheaper housing outside the city or an influx of young professionals prior to the pandemic.
Schools
K-12 enrollment in St. Paul Public Schools has slipped 17% across the decade. The district enrolled 37,000 students in 2014, compared to 35,600 students in 2019. There were 30,900 students enrolled this year, according to Wilder Research and the Minnesota Department of Education. St. Paul Public Schools accounted for 69% of the city’s student enrollments a decade ago, compared to 58% today.
Charter schools grow
The state Department of Education’s combined enrollment figures for St. Paul Public Schools and the city’s charter schools found 48,200 students in 2014, and 50,980 in 2019, compared to 48,000 today. In effect, no significant change over the course of the decade. Another way to look at the numbers? While overall public school enrollment has stayed the same, charter school enrollment appears to have grown as much as St. Paul Public Schools have shrunk. There were 32 charter schools in the city a decade ago, compared to 35 today.
Private schools
K-12 students enrolled in private schools in St. Paul fell 14% across the decade. Private school enrollment numbers totaled about 5,670 students in 2014, compared to 5,300 students in 2019. Enrollment fell to 4,850 students this year, according to Wilder Research and the Department of Education.
Third-grade reading proficiency drops
The pandemic took its toll on children’s reading skills, though proficiency was in decline even before COVID-19. Third-grade reading proficiency, as measured in both St. Paul Public Schools and the city’s charter schools, dropped from 39% in 2014 to 34.5% in 2019. It has since dropped again to 29% this year, according to Wilder Research and the Department of Education.
Eighth-grade math proficiency plummets
Student math skills have been dropping for years, and the pandemic did not help. Eighth-grade math proficiency, as measured in both St. Paul Public Schools and the city’s charter schools, dropped from 41.8% in 2014 to 37.6% in 2019. It fell again to 22.8% this year, according to Wilder Research and the Department of Education.
High school graduation stays flat
High school graduation rates within St. Paul Public Schools have stayed fairly steady across the decade. In 2014, 74.5% of students graduated, compared to 76.3% in 2019 and 75.4% in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the Department of Education.
Crime
St. Paul averaged 17 homicides a year between 2010 and 2018, but 2014 was relatively low — 11 homicides (classified as murder and non-negligent manslaughter) were recorded in the city that year, according to St. Paul police and state crime reports. In 2019, homicides climbed to 30, according to police records, raising alarm citywide. Then came the pandemic and the city recorded 37 homicides in 2022 including Metro Transit cases, or 40 including killings that were deemed self-defense or justified. The total fell last year to 27 homicides (or 33 including killings classified as self-defense), an improvement that still amounts to more than the number from a decade ago.
Crime surges, then falls
Overall numbers of serious violent crimes and serious property crimes appear to have declined in St. Paul last year relative to 2014. That’s based on preliminary numbers from 2023, with wide variation depending upon the type of crime. Rape, aggravated assault, arson, motor vehicle theft and larceny all surged in 2022, only to drop back down again last year. Compared to a decade ago, reported robberies declined 42% last year. Aggravated assault increased 13%. Burglary declined 43%. Motor vehicle theft, which reached new heights in 2022, dropped back to a dull roar last year, for an overall increase of 6% compared to a decade prior. Notably, arson numbers increased 50% compared to a decade ago, according to Wilder Research and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
Downtown residents
Downtown St. Paul has become increasingly residential. The core of downtown, which was home to nearly 7,000 residents in 2014 and closer to 8,000 in 2019, took a dip during 2020, the outset of the pandemic. The downtown population, now estimated at around 8,400, appears to be reasserting itself, and could reach 20,000 residents by the mid- to late 2050s, according to the Downtown Alliance, which is designing strategies to get there faster.
Jobs downtown
Downtown St. Paul has been shedding jobs for years. There were more than 40,000 jobs downtown a decade ago, and just under 40,000 jobs in 2019. While official numbers are still being tallied, totals are believed to have fallen to about 30,000 as of 2022, and could be below 30,000 in 2023, according to a consultant’s report for the Downtown Alliance.
