Redevelopment of the Historic Hamm’s Brewery Site Continues

Early in 2024, as part of its development agreement with the City of Saint Paul, JB Vang held a series of community meetings regarding their plans to redevelop the historic Hamm’s Brewery complex. Four meetings took place between January 24th and March 13th, culminating in a list of recommendations compiled by the Twin Cities branch of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).

Chosen by the City of Saint Paul as tentative developer of the site in January 2023, JB Vang’s plan includes adding 206 affordable housing units to the site, as well as a 56,000 square foot, two-story marketplace in the former brewhouse. The market is envisioned as an incubator for local businesses, managed by legacy non-profits East Side Neighborhood Development Company (ESNDC) and Hmong American Partnership. The plan also includes an outdoor public plaza, indoor community space, and greenspace adjacent to Swede Hollow Park and Bruce Vento Trail.

Having once employed thousands of middle class employees the brewery closed in 1997 after a wave of industrial plant closures and relocations that devastated the East Side economy. Many attempts have been made to redevelop the site over the decades, but the vast and labyrinthine brick structures present an enormous challenge to the city and developers. JB Vang’s plan was selected for its adherence to a list of priorities put forth by the city with input from ESNDC, East Side Area Business Association, and the district 4 and 5 community councils. These priorities included maximizing housing and/or jobs, engaging the surrounding community, and prioritizing equitable outcomes. 

The community meetings, held at HOPE Academy, were at times tense, with several attendees voicing concern over the lack of parking included in the current plan. Rob Clapp, owner of Saint Paul Brewing, was amongst the plan’s loudest critics. Situated in the former keg and wash houses at the back of the site, Saint Paul Brewing has been a successful brewpub and eatery since Clapp purchased the building and the business from John Warner in 2020. Clapp argued that the large surface lot on the eastern end of the site often fills up with patrons visiting the brewery. In JB Vang’s plan, this lot would be replaced with an apartment complex providing affordable housing to the community. Clapp claimed that removing this parking, while adding hundreds of residents and more businesses to the site, would greatly impair his business. Several other resident attendees recommended solutions to the parking issue, including satellite parking sites around the area with shuttle service. 

Developers in Saint Paul are not required to include parking in housing or commercial building plans. Those requirements were scrapped by the mayor and city council in 2021. According to a press release at the time of the rules change, roughly 36% of Saint Paul’s land area is currently dedicated to moving or storing automobiles. According to the release, “fully eliminating required off-street parking minimums allows more opportunity for housing developments, incentivizes housing affordability, reduces carbon emissions, and reduces overall urban sprawl.”

Sustain Saint Paul Board member Luke Hanson supports the new rules, and says that getting away from car-first development is vital for creating a greener, more pedestrian-friendly city. “Parking minimums are one form of a subsidy that shores up the ease, comfort, and convenience of getting around in a car and advantages car travel over these other forms of travel that don’t have the same kinds of privilege. It’s really about leveling the playing field to figure out, if we’re not favoring parking in this particular way and it has to compete in a fair fight with biking and walking and transit, how much will people’s habits just automatically shift?”

Though the city does not impose parking requirements, parking has always been part of JB Vang’s design for the site. Two levels of parking are included under the new apartment building on the east end of the site, with a total of 144 spaces. These spaces will serve residents of both the newly constructed apartment building and the additional housing in the existing buildings on the west end of the site. Saint Paul Brewing already owns the inner courtyard parking lot on the west end and its 41 spots. Clapp owns four buildings and over 130,000 square feet of real estate on the site. He has access to 20 spots on the eastern side of 700 Minnehaha Avenue (previously home to an aquaponics business) and an additional 25 spots next to the old powerhouse across Minnehaha Avenue (though he has publicly stated that he does not intend to use those spaces as parking for any of his businesses). In addition to these resources, JB Vang has voluntarily redesigned the new apartment building in response to the community workshops. The new building has been pushed further to the east and tighter against the bluff at the back of the site, raising costs for the project but creating another 70 spots for surface parking to be utilized by all commercial businesses on site. 

Despite these efforts, Clapp has continued to oppose the redevelopment. In January, Clapp’s lawyer submitted a letter to the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) formally objecting to the listing of the Hamm’s site in the National Register of Historic Places. JB Vang spent months working with SHPO and putting together a detailed account of the site and its historical significance to the East Side. Their application was approved by the state historic preservation board and submitted to the National Park Service for listing on the National Register.

According to Stephanie Harr, longtime East Sider and Project Development Consultant for JB Vang, due to the size and challenging nature of the site, historic tax credits are essential to its redevelopment. “It’s unlikely that any developer could develop a historic property like this without those historic tax credits,” Harr said. Clapp, who formally submitted an application to be named tentative developer of the site himself, is certainly well aware of this fact. In the same letter in which Clapp objected to the designation, his lawyer states that Clapp actually supports it, at least in theory. The letter reads in part: 

“[Mr. Clapp and his businesses] are champions for the adaptive reuse of historic buildings and welcome tools and resources that support their current and proposed work at the Hamm’s site. They are committed to historic preservation and recognize the potential benefits of a listing.” 

Due to the rules of the historic designation process, Clapp’s objection effectively blocked the historic designation and any tax credits that would have come with it. Any owner of a private property parcel on the site is allowed to register an objection. If the owner or owners of the majority of parcels object, then the National Parks Service will not add the site to the National Historic Register. After buying the former 11 Wells distillery building from its previous owner last summer, Clapp now owns four parcels within the proposed Hamm’s Historic District. There are a total of seven privately owned parcels, giving Clapp a personal veto over the process. 

While the process of historic designation through SHPO is now effectively dead, there is an alternative path in which the city itself can grant designation and pass it on to the National Parks service for inclusion in the National Register. This process includes open City Council hearings at which anyone can register their objections, but does not allow for veto by private property holders. The City of Saint Paul is currently working on this second designation process. 

In the meantime, Clapp has taken his objections to the public. In February, Clapp created a new website, hammstown.com, imploring the public to use a provided email template to pressure city representatives to slow down the development and focus on the historic preservation of the west end buildings before removal of the east end parking lot. Clapp also went on something of a media blitz, with favorable articles quoting him and amplifying his concerns in the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Kare 11, 5 Eyewitness News, and others. 

In both Clapp’s letter to SHPO and his other public statements, he has claimed that the city failed to communicate with him and that he received inadequate notice about the historic designation process. However, in a letter dated February 6th, 2025, the executive director of the Saint Paul Housing and Redevelopment Authority refutes these claims, providing evidence of correspondence between the city, JB Vang, and Clapp about the historical designation going back to at least April of 2024. 

JB Vang is currently working on rezoning the site to allow for residential apartments, as well as securing the capital necessary to close the sale of the property and commence construction. In December of 2024, JB Vang was informed that they had not received a large allocation of funds requested from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency (MHFA), despite being the highest scoring project from the metro area. They are working with the MHFA to reapply this year. According to Harr, the previous bid likely failed due to a technicality around funding the parking beneath the east end apartments and the overall size of the request, which is near the maximum usually awarded by MHFA. Despite this, Harr says that JB Vang remains optimistic the project will receive the required funding in 2025. This money is vital, as the 4.7 million dollars already promised by the City of Saint Paul for the project is contingent upon the MHFA funds.

“These are normal parts of development,” Harr says. “This is a very complex development. It’s normal in the process to have to take a look at the plan, come back and adjust it to make it more cost effective or make it fit better on the site. You’re always learning new information, so it’s a very iterative process.”

Once the center of economic life on the East Side but long a symbol of decline, there’s hope shovels will hit ground for the next phase of life for the Hamm’s site in 2027.