Walk in to Peggy and Ed Sonksen’s backyard, and you feel like you’re standing in the middle of the woods.
This time of year, the stand of trees that borders their property on the 400 block of Totem Road is lush and green. Wildlife sightings are not uncommon. An egret strutted down the road on a recent Tuesday afternoon. A hawk flew overhead.
Hidden behind the foliage is a smattering of buildings that make up Boys Totem Town. The residential center for delinquent teens has been operating on an 80-acre parcel in St. Paul’s Highwood Hills neighborhood for more than 100 years.
Much of the site is natural. A few roads, athletic fields and buildings break up the otherwise grassy terrain. Totem Town has been a good and largely quiet neighbor to the Sonksens and many of the other residents who live nearby.
That’s why talk of the center’s potential closure — or what may replace it — has been creating angst among neighbors.
“It’s a huge concern,” said Betsy Leach, executive director of the area’s neighborhood district council. “We believe there is more consensus than … different groups realize, but there are certainly distinct concerns as well.”
“SLIM” CHANCE OF STAYING
Aging facilities, a dwindling population of juveniles served and gaps in services led the Ramsey County Board a couple of years ago to begin discussions on Totem Town’s future. Current talks center on a new, joint facility with Hennepin County on a to-be-determined site. Although a decision is several months out, sources familiar with the discussion say change is likely for the Totem Town property.
Even if Ramsey County opts against partnering with Hennepin, it will still need to build a new center to serve its delinquent teens, and Totem Town’s current home seems increasingly impractical, said Jim McDonough, the Ramsey County Commissioner who represents the neighborhood.
“I’d say the odds of building again on that site are pretty slim … There is no transit access and a lot of families (we serve) are transit dependent,” he said.
Leach said she’s “90 percent certain” Totem Town will close based on comments she’s heard from county officials and her familiarity with needs facing both Ramsey and Hennepin’s delinquent teen rehabilitation programs.
With that in mind, she said “it’s fairly certain” the counties will ultimately end up building a facility together somewhere. “There are too many benefits to both counties for merging,” Leach said.
The neighborhood district council’s website figures that merged site will likely be “close to the intersection of the two counties, in an urban location near public transportation.”
PREDESIGN WORK TO BEGIN
Ramsey County took a step in that direction on July 12 when commissioners voted to hire, along with Hennepin County, BWSR Architects to begin predesign work on a joint facility.
The two counties have spent much of the past couple years exploring whether a merger made sense. The partnership, a first for Hennepin and Ramsey, was born out of similar circumstances.
Both counties have old facilities with significant maintenance needs — The Hennepin County Home School is located in Minnetonka — and both have seen its client population dwindle. Additionally, each has programs the other doesn’t offer. Hennepin’s, for example, serves girls and sex offenders, while Totem Town offers after-care and day treatment options.
By combining, the theory goes, the two counties could offer a broader spectrum of services to youth.
While calling the July 12 vote an important step, commissioners were quick to point out that no final decision will be made on merging until spring 2017. The majority said it will only happen if it’s in the best interest of Ramsey County teens.
Commissioner Janice Rettman voted against the proposal.
BRACING FOR CHANGE
The writing seems to be on the wall, Leach said. The District 1 Community Council recently began soliciting community members to join a task force that will be charged with identifying the community’s desires for the Totem Town site.
The council secured funding from the Saint Paul Foundation to hire a consultant to begin the work and is hoping to acquire more to keep the process and conversation going over the next three years, Leach said.
Any merger is likely a few years out, meaning no change would come to the site in the immediate future.
Leach said it’s important for the neighborhood to start getting ready now.
“This site is large and largely undeveloped. It is also in the river corridor and environmentally sensitive. Plus (it’s) smack dab in the middle of residential properties … (so) it is important, exciting and more than a little daunting to take (this) on,” she said.
McDonough said he’s supportive of the neighborhood beginning the planning process, particularly given the potential and size of the property.
“It’s just an absolutely gorgeous spot, pretty much all wooded, Savannah type land with just a few structures on it,” McDonough said.
DIFFERENT VIEWS
Adding to the equation about its future is the demographics that now comprise District 1, which includes Highwood, Battle Creek, Conway and the Eastview neighborhoods. What was once a predominantly white area has seen an influx of Somali and Hmong families move in, McDonough said.
The African American and African immigrant populations alone jumped from less than 5 percent to 22 percent between 1990 and 2012, according to the District 1 Community Council’s Community Plan. The Asian population jumped from 2 to 17 percent.
Much of the East African population is concentrated in apartments adjacent to one side of the Totem Town site, while the other three sides are flanked by single-family homes largely occupied by “high income, predominantly white homeowners,” Leach said.
Not everyone is on the same page about what they’d like to see happen to the property, Leach said.
Some longtime homeowners want to follow a neighborhood plan established in the 1990s that calls for turning the site into a park should Totem Town shutter, Leach said.
Other residents, particularly those newer to the area, want to use the site to build some type of community gathering space, Leach said.
Yet others have expressed concern that the district council is intent on seeing subsidized housing go up on the Totem Town site, something they say there is already too much of in the area. Leach said the council has no preconceived notions about what should happen.
TAKING THE LEAD
The neighborhood should drive the next phase of life for the parcel that has long been off the county’s tax-rolls, McDonough said. He added that the city of St. Paul would ultimately be in charge of planning and zoning should it come to that.
The county plans to launch a public engagement process this fall to invite more residents’ voices into the discussion, said Allison Winters, public information manager for the county. More details and dates are expected to be released in the coming weeks. Hennepin County will unroll a similar process.
“A lot has changed (in this area) in the last 30 years and I think everybody feels fairly strongly that if and when we decide to leave … that all the voices in the community are heard in the planning process about what to do with it,” McDonough said.
Sonksen, 80, is among those who hope the largely pristine property doesn’t become subsidized housing. If residential is necessary, she said she’d rather see it zoned for single-family homes or possibly a facility for seniors.
Her first choice is to see Totem Town stay though, or at the very least become parkland. That way she and her husband can continue to feel like the home they built 53 years ago abuts a nature preserve and not a housing development.
“It’s been nice, I have to say … But I know you can’t expect everything to stay the same forever,” Sonksen said.
