The City of St. Louis Park wants its employees nearby. And there’s actual cash behind it. $2,500 bucks towards a home purchase and another cool grand if you pick out something from their foreclosed housing stock. Add that to the $8 K tax incentives right now …and Lordy if you’re a first time buyer and can get in on some of those programs - WOW!  We’re talking real money. (A Webdigs agent could help you shake the sugar tree and see what goodies fall out.)

There are some income guidelines. Two-person households must make $77K or under and $97K for a family of four.

Laurie Blake of the Star Tribune wrote that while there are other communities offering incentives right now, “an outright grant that is available to most buyers and can be used on any home in the city is an unusual incentive.”

If buyers sell before 3 years have elapse, the money will be treated like a loan that must be paid back, but the city is guessing you’ll love it in St. Louis Park.

Presently there are 25 grants available, so if you want to live where you work, get searching in St. Louis Park HERE. And read the community profile of St. Louis Park HERE.

St. Louis Park is offering people who work in the city a $2,500 grant to buy a home there.

For the purchase of a foreclosed house, the city will chip in another $1,000.

Head 30 minutes south of the Twin Cities and that the sky opens up over the rolling hills of country. That’s where you’ll find the city of Chaska. While there is a historic Main Street with brick buildings, a charming library and town square, Chaska is better known for its more recent development – and lots of it.

Attracted by the relatively affordable housing, people have flocked to the open spaces of Chaska with its many single-family home and townhouse developments. (To be honest, the housing is quite dense and often set up in “development loops” but these projects do offer a lot of house for less money.) Chaska is also known for being one of the first communities to broadcast wi-fi - though at least one local blogger isn’t happy with the system’s performance.

Abundant big retail shopping such as Home Depot, Target and Rainbow Foods has also sprung up around the major intersection of Pioneer Trail and highway 41. But it’s not all about big box retail. Residents get access to rural locales, public and private golf courses and the enormous Chaska Community Center. It’s a gym, a performing arts complex, a swimming facility, an ice rink and an indoor soccer arena - it’s the Swiss Army Knife of recreation.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better  -  living where every retail, sport and nature need is handily met - the drive is about to get easier. By year’s end  the highway 212 project, a $238 million dollar upgrade, is slated to completely finish the major conduit to the metro that will include improved public transportation for city commuters.

If you’re in the market for housing in Chaska, you can start your search HERE - and then enjoy your Webdig’s rebate when it’s all set & done.

Walking just west of downtown St. Paul is one of my favorite Twin Cities locations  -  Cathedral Hill (technically named Ramsey Hill). It can make you feel like you’ve stumbled into a 19th century novel. Brownstone row houses and ivy-covered Victorian homes share the skyline with the majestic Cathedral of St. Paul. Simply put, it’s gorgeous.

Having once sheltered the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, you can half hope residents to emerge from their historic flats wearing newsboy hats - from when they were in style the first time. But don’t mistake bookish with sleepy; this literary Mecca is a happening place given its crush of shops, restaurants and a large food co-op, the Mississippi Market.

You can walk from Nina’s coffeeshop (impress the locals by saying “Ni-naya”) in the historic Blair Arcade and down the stairs to Garrison Keillor’s bookstore, Common Good Books. (Whenever I have a story I’m having trouble writing, I end up a Nina’s just to change things up a bit.)

Cross the street and feel you’ve arrived on a different continent when you enter the restaurant, Moscow on the Hill, where there’s a full menu page devoted entirely to vodka and the best borscht I ever had (hey, don’t knock beet soup until you’ve tried it).

Then watch the curling stones collide at the Saint Paul Curling Club with a post ice-time beer at WA Frost’s – all within three memorable blocks.

But it wasn’t always this nice. The intersection of Selby/Dale used to have a rough reputation. But the turn-around of the formerly aristocratic community started in the 70’s and 80’s. People with little money and a strong back worked very hard to make homes better.  These were urban pioneers who bought property for $10, $15 thousand dollars and put in sweat equity.

President of the Selby Business Association and owner of Great Harvest Bread Company, Bonnie Alton said the area really got a firm footing on its most infamous intersection in the mid-nineties. “Mississippi Market Co-op anchored Selby and Dale when they constructed their building and brought in their store.”  The association now hosts an annual Selby Celebration: a Patio and Dance Party.  “Very courageous, far sighted people made this possible.  I really couldn’t see this event happening [10 years ago].”

St. Paul is lucky it did happen. You can start your search for your own little piece of history with Webdigs right here.

Edina was in the news this weekend. And the story did nothing to dissuade people that Edina isn’t the stuffy suburb everyone thinks it is. The article reported on a stern email sent from the city to residents whose children were suspected of …putting handprints in the fresh concrete sidewalk. Yes, young vandals were tagging their territories with hand prints, ages and dates.

But on the upside, you can see how all over issues Edina can be. If you’re in the market for an upscale culture of excellence, the City of Edina is a must-see. It starts with its location– just southwest of Minneapolis- and adjacent to two major highways that allow residents easy access to big city benefits while surrounded by high-end suburban amenities.
Overwhelmingly populated by older, tastefully updated homes, “Old Edina” is a sought after location near the commercial Mecca of 50th and France. The draw is boutique shopping, established eateries like the venerable Convention Grill (where one of the best burgers in the Twin Cities awaits in this retro diner) and the juried art fair held on the intersection the last weekend in May.

There has been some controversy as small 50’s bungalows are purchased only to be knocked down and replaced with larger McMansiony type homes just up the legal property allowances. Neighbors are fighting back. Here is an recent article in the national magazine Preservation about Edina’s plight.

But when most people think Edina, it’s all about top-notch education. It’s frequently found in Newsweek’s top 100 public high schools list. Whether it’s the District’s French Immersion School, 100% high school graduation rate or intensely competitive youth sports program recognized in Sports Illustrated, Edina shuns mediocrity.

While outsiders are quick to associate the area with economic status, Edina’s wealth of public green space shouldn’t be overlooked. Residents have unparalleled urban access to 44 parks and a litany of recreation centers.

If you’re looking for a sure bet, you may find your new address in this classy first-ring ‘burb.

With gas prices what they are, people are looking to be closer to where they work, shop and play. This makes the timing perfect for the Excelsior and Grand redevelopment of St. Louis Park.

Located less than 15-minutes from downtown, St. Louis Park has a hot spot adding a little sparkle to an old-school suburb. Excelsior & Grand is a mixed-use project with condos, apartments and lofts - and high-end retail shopping including Trader Joe’s (3-buck Chuck has arrived!) and Panera Bread. (Rumor has it that the idea of Webdigs was born at a coffee shop there.)

But what makes the project special is its proximity toWolfe Park. It has biking trails, fishing pond and ball courts. For feeling very close to the city of Minneapolis the amount of green space is remarkable. Every June the park hosts the popular Parktacular Street Dance and Carnival .

Also handy is the Rec Center. The facility has indoor swimming pools, two ice arenas and rooms for nearly every community classes and lessons imaginable. But hands down the most popular feature is the outdoor Aquatic Slide Park with jumbo slides and a sandy play area.

Good friends, Chris and Kelly, left their cramped home in NorthEast Mpls for St. Louis Park when they were expecting their third child. When I asked Kelly about SLP this is what she said:

“We wanted to be in the city and live somewhere with diversity,” says Kelly, “but we also wanted the feeling of a small town.” What they found was a bigger home in St. Louis Park, just six blocks from Minneapolis and its urban lakes. “We’re getting a lot a city amenities, but in a community that feels like a manageable size.”

Long known as a Jewish enclave, St. Louis Park is the famous hometown of comedian and Senatorial hopeful, Al Franken and the Oscar-winning Cohen Brothers. Although other faiths now outnumber the area’s Jewish population, the Season of Lights would not be complete with seeing the giant, lit Menorah visible from the highway.

Interested in St. Louis Park? You can start your Webdig’s search HERE

View from my mother-in-law’s townhome patio in Eden Prairie

Honestly, I’ve not given Eden Prairie much thought until now. I’m temporarily parked here (with my fabu mother-in-law) until going up to Duluth with the children

— Let me take a minute here to say that all my worldly stuff and I are “on a break.” I’m mad it all for being so heavy, cumbersome and a colossal pain in my butt - and it doesn’t want to talk about it. So hence, it’s in storage and we’re having “some time apart to figure things out.” When I finally unpack it on July 16th I’m sure we’ll be happy to see each other again, but until then we just need our space —

Anyway, back to Eden Prairie… for the first time I’ve had a chance to get to know it. And what I can say is that it is surprisingly beautiful.

Up until the year 2000, EP was just a farm community that exploded to the nearly 65,000 population it is today. In fact it wasn’t even a village until 1962 and become a city in 1974. I had always thought it was just a repository for town homes & big box stores, but what I’m learning is that city planners really did their job.

There are walking trails EVERYWHERE - in fact 170 miles of them - and in the part of EP that we’re in (not far from the mall and near Anderson Lake Parkway) we can walk to a bunch of playgrounds, a swimming pool and even one of those cool Three Rivers Parks.

I had always acted as if Minneapolis had the lock on good parks, but honestly, I tip my hat to this southern suburb. There are 2,250 acres of park land and 1,300 acres of green space and there are kids activities galore offered by their Park & Rec. Also the Hennepin County Library here is to die for. It’s one of those places that makes me feel really good about paying my taxes - and that doesn’t happen very often.

A plus for Eden Praire is it’s accessibility to highways. It is about 11 miles for the city of Minneapolis and one can get there using highways 169, 494,62, 212 or 5. One can head to Chaska and parts further south on newly redone highway 312. These many on ramps has helped make it the popular spot it is.

Right now my kids are at a playground “camp” for three hours and I’m one at one of the oldest houses in Eden Prairie, the Smith Douglas More House, turned into a Dunn Bros Coffee. (below) I’m sitting on the patio and for the first time ever, Eden Prairie feels like a real place.

Lucie B. Amundsen in a housing writer in transition. She wants to do a shout-out to loyal reader Chris who is about to have another beautiful baby. Remember Chris, it is so miserable at the end of the pregnancy to make pushing look like a reasonable alternative. Good Vibes. Make Tom buy you one of these cool push gifts I recently wrote about: push gift link.

You might have caught this article today in the Star Tribune. It’s about the private north suburb community of North Oaks requesting that Google Maps remove photos of their properties from its Street View function. By the way, it’s a really cool feature that allows you to see photos from various street addresses. If you haven’t played with it, I encourage you to give it a try. If you’re house hunting, it’s yet another way to burn innumerbal hours on-line searching for your next real estate quest.

The gist of the article is that North Oaks contends no one can enter to take photos of homes without trespassing on their private property - thus making any posted pictures ill-gotten goods. Google complied with their request and took down North Oak maps. But if you read the electronic comments left by readers on the Star Tribune website, it seems the general public are not with the good people of North Oaks. Comments range from calling residents paranoid to accusing them of class warfare.

This surprises me. I mean, it’s private property and the folks in North Oaks pay for all the roads and infrastructure themselves. It seems well within their rights.

When I wrote the Neighborhood Spotlight column for the Star Tribune a few years back, I had to stand on the street and take pictures of homes as examples of real estate in a given place. I hated doing it.

I used to tell my editor, Jim, that he’d have to bail me out or visit me in the hospital should I end up in an altercation over the practice. Luckily, I never did, but I know I ruffled some feathers and got some stare downs from residents. But I knew I had the law on my side with public road under my feet.

In the case of North Oaks, there is no public space from which to photograph from. And if North Oakians want to exercise their right to privacy, I see no reason why they shouldn’t. In a world with paparazzi stalking celebrities at every turn and nothing is too sacred to throw onto the World Wide Web, I find it refreshing for a group to decide to opt out of it all.

If you want to opt out as well, the Star Tribune kindly provided these instructions:

HOW TO TAKE YOUR HOME OFF STREET VIEW

• Go to maps.google.com.

• Enter any address and click on “street view.”

• Click on “street view help” in the image window.

• Click on “report inappropriate image.”

What’s your take?

The Midtown Farmer’s Market at Lake Street & Hiawatha (by the YWCA) is open every Saturday 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 am. In addition to offering local products, shoppers enjoy live music, library story time and demonstrations.

Let the Farmer’s Market begin! Markets are extremely popular in the city. I think because it combines our rabid passion for festivals, gardening and going green into one package.

The Midtown Market is a particularly deep shade of green given that it is the most accessible one in the city. It’s just steps from light rail and bus transit, the Green Way bicycle trail - and has a sizable parking lot for your Prius. And unlike many of the larger markets, the Midtown Market prides itself in offering truly local foods directly from growers - not wholesalers.

Responding to America’s cash-free society, this is the first twin city farmer’s market to take CREDIT CARDS and public assistance cards. It works by purchasing wooden tokens on your plastic at the info booth. These tokens work like cash throughout the market. Fun, huh?

I think my children would love paying with produce with wooden tokens, not to mention watching the sheep shearing and holding the piglets- and this is a good market to bring them to. It’s big enough to have what I need, but still intimate enough keep track of everyone. (My little guy has gotten lost in a crowd before and although it had a happy ending, it was frightening. He did exactly as we had role played. He found a mother with a lot of children -because no one is less likely to take a child than an overwhelmed parent- and he said, “My name is Mi-whoa and I’m loss-ed.”)

This whole Midtown neighborhood certainly deserves a post of its own. But I’ll mention that Light Rail has made the once idle areas of Greater Longfellow, Powderhorn and Midtown hot property again. This happens just as local investment on the west side of Hiawatha is starting to pay off.

If you haven’t been to Lake Street lately you may be surprised how fresh it’s looking thanks, in part, to the Lake Street renewal project. The decorative lighting, sidewalk trees, bike racks and places like the Midtown Exchange Building (think old Sears) and their Global Market have really spiffied up the area.

So check out the market, bring your own coffee mug for a discount (I used my shiny new Webdigs mug for a cool quarter off) and get yourself some wooden nickels. It’ll be summer before we know it.

Photos credits: I took the picture at the market myself. You get extra points if you find the light rain train on the bridge. But the cool image of the wooden coins is from the Midtown Market site which you can visit HERE.

This 50’s house is for sale in St. Anthony Park for $399,900. More info HERE

This home built in 1924 is on the market for $239,900. Click HERE for the skinny.

Before jumping into the 411 of St. Anthony Park, let’s address a nagging issue.What’s the deal with all the St. Anthonys? St. Anthony Park, St. Anthony Village, St. Anthony Main and the city of St. Anthony in Stearns County. Was the Vatican being stingy here and wouldn’t issue us any more saints?

I happen to know the answer - not because I live in the Twin Cities - but because I’m not from the Twin Cities. It sounds counterintuitive; however, transplants like myself host out-of-town guests. In accommodating the various interests of visiting friends and family members for over a decade, I’ve learned much about my adopted city.

And here’s the scoop.

One of the first Europeans to “discover” Minneapolis’s Saint Anthony Falls in the late 1600’s was a Catholic missionary named Father Louis Hennepin. He named the falls after his order’s patron saint, Saint Anthony of Padua and apparently the rest of state followed his lead. (It’s Friday, now go impress your friends at Happy Hour.)

Onto our feature presentation, St. Anthony Park.

Located with Hwy 280 to the west, the cities of Lauderdale and Falcon Heights to the north and University Avenue to the south, this area is tucked away from the normal hustle of the metro. Like Highland Park, it’s like a small town in the city, only on charm steroids.

The main street, Como Avenue, has a European-style village feel with small (mostly local) businesses and restaurants like Muffaletta’s which has fabulous outdoor dining. It has a quiet, urban romance where shops are within walking distance of most houses and streets have been around since the first Roosevelt administration. Honestly, it’s so darn cute you see why people routinely leave notes on house doors indicating an interest in buying the property. It’s that kind of neighborhood.

The St. Anthony Park library was built by Carnegie in 1917 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

I used to work in St. Anthony Park and really enjoyed walking under the mature trees by the historic library and the expanse of green space on the Luther Seminary campus. Up the hill is the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus which shouldn’t be confused with the zoo in Dinky Town. This is the other U - the laid back Ag school with acres of working fields lacking like the craziness of the main campus.

But the U has had its influence. Many of the homes were built by professors throughout the years and among the 20’s Tudor-style homes and bungalows will be the occasional 70’s modern housing experiment, which somehow makes the housing stock all the stronger.

Go take a walk over in St. Anthony Park yourself, you’re sure to enjoy it.

Sharing the Love, Sharing the Credit:

Library Photo: http://www.sppl.org/locations/stanthony.html

Portions of the post were gleaned with permission from the Star Tribune article about the neighborhood written by Jason Amundsen.

Highland Park is a little St. Paul jewel - I know because I lived in a brick “St. Paul Classic” apartment house there for about 8 years. It is nearly equidistance between the downtowns, hugs up against the Mississippi along the bluffs and is walkable like a village. In many ways, it’s just about perfect.

And the people who live there seem to treasure it. It was one of the first St. Paul neighborhoods to welcome Catholics and Jews and the spirit of these first residents lives on places like the College of St. Catherine, the Jewish Community Center, St. Leo’s Church and Cecil’s Deli (read Rueben paradise).

The housing boom came to Highland in the 1940’s leaving charming story-and-a-half stucco houses. Here is what I consider a typical example selling right around the $350K mark. These homes are filled with carved woodwork and build-ins.

More recent development is located in the southern region of Highland where post-World War II construction meets modern townhouses and condos. A nice balance of rental property is scattered throughout the area.

The housing stock is very well maintained and the yards are exceptionally tidy. And beyond just being well cared for, the neighborhood has a sense of place. For example the historical lighting is just that – historical.

What takes Highland to the next level is being able to walk to real shopping. There is a mix of specialty shops like the Fixery and the Tea Source, as well as some tastefully built newer chains like Chipolte and Barnes & Noble.

But what anchors Highland is Lunds and the Mississippi Market Co-op. Real grocery options makes it an area where one can truly be car-free. And it’s a manageable bike ride (or quick bus trip) across the river to the Hiawatha Light Rail that can whisk you to points Downtown, the airport and the Mall of America.

Another plus is the unusually high amount of green space in the city which you can see on this map. There are also walking trails all along the river, too.

The only ding - if you call it a ding - is that it’s a pretty stately place. It’s not the neighborhood you move to to unfurl your freak flag, paint your house purple and plant giant whirly gigs. Save that for arty Powderhorn or NorthEast, Minneapolis.

Lucie Amundsen just completed a Neighborhood Profile section for the relocation guide, Twin Cities Living. It made her fall in love with the region all over again.