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Hennepin County District Court Judge Mel Dickstein has thrown out a final count of the five-part legal challenge to a $400 million Downtown East development on the Star Tribune property in downtown Minneapolis.

Judge Dickstein this afternoon denied a request for a temporary restraining order by mayoral candidates Stephanie Woodruff and Dan Cohen and former Minneapolis city council president Paul Ostrow. That's on top of 

four counts of their complaint he turned down last week

The city council approved the deal last Friday, and 

Wells Fargo signed off on the deal to become the main tenant yesterday

Basically, the judge said that it's too early to decide the dispute over who owns the proposed park land in the project. The property is expected to belong to the Star Tribune through next week, and isn't scheduled to be turned into a park for another two years:

That question was at the heart of a hearing on the matter 

held in Judge Dickstein's courtroom on Wednesday

. Opponents said that the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board alone had the jurisdiction to operate park land in the city.

The judge appeared to agree with them on that point: "Nowhere in the Charter will one find the specific authority to devise, maintain and adopt parks except in those enabling provisions that give the power to the Park Board," Judge Dickstein wrote in his order. But he decided the issue simply wasn't ripe.

The judge's ruling does present an interesting conundrum: there are some park-like places that the city of Minneapolis owns and operates now, including Peavey Plaza and Gold Medal Park.

Minneapolis' city attorney said she doesn't think Judge Dickstein's order will impact those two areas. "There's a lot of green space that the city owns, operates and maintains," Susan Segal said in an interview after the ruling. "The city and the park board have been working together for decades, and I think the judge expects that they'll continue to do so."

The park board president agreed. In a statement, John Erwin said he welcomed the judge's ruling, and that the board "looks forward to working collaboratively with the Mayor, the City Council and the other parties involved in the Ryan project in bringing a new and dynamic park presence to Downtown East."

Here's what the project opponents had to say about the matter in a statement issued this afternoon:

Tim Nelson

Author

Hennepin County District Court Judge Mel Dickstein has thrown out a final count of the five-part legal challenge to a $400 million Downtown East development on the Star Tribune property in downtown Minneapolis. Judge Dickstein this afternoon denied a request for a temporary restraining order by mayoral candidates Stephanie Woodruff and Dan Cohen and former 

Hennepin County District Court Judge Mel Dickstein has thrown out a final count of the five-part legal challenge to a $400 million Downtown East development on the Star Tribune property in downtown Minneapolis. Judge Dickstein this afternoon denied a request for a temporary restraining order by mayoral candidates Stephanie Woodruff and Dan Cohen and former Read more →


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