Mar 24, 2006 12:03 pm US/Central
Cow Town No More: South St. Paul's Stockyards Sold
South St. Paul, Minn. (AP) ―
The earthy scent of hay and livestock is wafting away in South St. Paul, Minn., and that makes Nick Voynovich sad.
The last piece of the city's historic stockyards is being sold for a business park expansion, meaning offices, warehouses and industrial buildings will eventually replace the hogs and cattle that made this a true cow town.
"That was always a pretty good smell to me," said Voynovich, the owner of Nick's Place, a bar that has drawn truckers, meatpackers and farmhands since the early 1970s. "It meant nothing but money, and it meant the same to the guys who worked in the packing plants in town."
The $5.2 million deal announced this week, though a private transaction, is in line with the city's effort to move beyond its cow town image. And farm interests have needed little incentive to sell, as they were pressured by rising real estate prices and suburban development.
The latest deal involves the Central Livestock Association's 27-acre site, yards that date to 1886. In spring 2008, Interstate Partners expects to break ground on the new construction.
"We have been working with Central Livestock on their exit plan for a while now," Mayor Beth Baumann said. "They sold it to a developer that we'll be able to work with. That will be a nice expansion of our tax base."
When the association leaves, the only remnants of a livestock industry that once employed thousands of workers will be a Dakota Premium slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant and two smaller Hmong-operated slaughterhouses. The yards once spanned 160 acres along the Mississippi River.
Jeff Reed, chief operating officer of the Central Livestock Association, said it's simply become too expensive to run an agricultural business in an urban area. The association acquired the yards in 1999 from a New York investment bank for $3 million.
"We pay more real estate taxes on the South St. Paul property than we pay on the rest of our properties combined," Reed said.
The livestock association plans to move its operations to growing auction sites in Zumbrota and Albany, Minn. It also runs yards in West Fargo, N.D., and Sioux Falls, S.D.
Farmers had expected the sale for years.
"I think it's a shame to close the facility, but I do see the need," said Joel Jansen, a beef and dairy farmer from Danube, Minn. "Nothing lasts forever."
Voynovich hopes to sell his bar, but either way, he plans to retire this year.
"I feel kind of bad, because South St. Paul has always been cow town," said Voynovich. "To me, it's still cow town. ... (But) now, all of a sudden, nothing."
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