When the University of Minnesota cast its net last year for developers to purchase and redevelop its 141-acre Les Bolstad Golf Course in Falcon Heights, the request for proposals included five pages of goals and guiding principles assembled by the city’s visioning committee.
Falcon Heights has called for a mix of townhomes, duplexes, apartments, single-family homes and patio homes, in addition to shops, cafes, office space and light industrial development dense enough to fundamentally alter the landscape of a tree-lined destination that has seen little change since shortly after it opened in 1916.
Once developed, the city’s population of 5,000 residents could, in theory, double in the years ahead.
Over the objection of golf enthusiasts, naturalists and some nearby residents, the increasingly cash-strapped U is currently evaluating five responses to its solicitation, raising the possibility of a major transformation near St. Paul’s relatively serene northwest border. The golf course, which closed last year, sits on both the north and south sides of Larpenteur Avenue, spanning dozens of acres of land abutting the St. Anthony Park neighborhood and the U’s heavily agricultural St. Paul campus.
The University of Minnesota Les Bolstad Golf Course in Falcon Heights on Friday, July 11, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
At the same time, Luther Seminary announced this month that it is physically divesting from its 157-year-old campus along Como Avenue in St. Paul and looking for a new home, putting another 26 neighboring acres up for grabs to developers. Beyond that, HealthPartners is building a new facility on former Luther Seminary property, across the street from its long-standing clinic at 2500 Como Ave., and it’s unclear what exactly will become of its soon-to-be-vacant clinic building.
The current site will be sold, and the parking adjacent to it will not be used for the new space, said a spokesperson for HealthPartners.
Golf course site
U of M officials have declined media interviews around the particulars of the Les Bolstad Golf Course sale, but they did share statements indicating they will make an announcement once they’ve come to an agreement with a developer.
Despite ample usage, “the golf course did not generate funding needed for the extensive repairs and upkeep that would ensure its ongoing viability,” reads an unsigned written statement, issued May 11, in response to a reporter’s inquiry. “The University is in a constrained economic environment and must ensure every investment is core to our mission. In unpredictable times, it’s more important than ever to be clear about who we are and strategic in how we deploy resources.”
The process has raised questions in the minds of nearby residents, who feel kept in the dark. The golf course property covers more area than the two largest development projects in St. Paul in recent memory: Highland Bridge, which occupies the former Twin Cities Assembly Plant campus in Highland Park, and the Heights, which will replace the former Hillcrest Country Club on the East Side.
Those acres, which were privately owned, drew up to 10 years of municipal master planning, rezoning and community discussion, a public vetting process some residents fear will be given short shrift, given the limited public outreach to date. They also entailed months of extensive soil removal and environmental remediation.
“I don’t think the university has been reaching out to anybody,” said Jon Schumacher, a former member of the St. Paul school board and former executive director of the St. Anthony Park Community Foundation, who lives in a condominium overlooking the course. “Right now, everything seems to be up in the air, and there’s not a lot of communication.”
Jon Schumacher, who lives next to the closed University of Minnesota Les Bolstad Golf Course, talks about challenges for the development of the 141-acre site in Falcon Heights on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
The course itself isn’t the only sizable property in the area up for redevelopment. Luther Seminary, which has shifted in large part toward online learning, has been trying for years to sell both its upper and lower campuses, spanning a total of 26 acres in St. Paul and Lauderdale. Some back-to-back deals with residential developers have fallen through, but Lifestyle Communities now has a purchase agreement to build senior housing on the lower campus, which straddles both cities and includes the 6-acre Breck Woods in Lauderdale.
Together, the Les Bolstad, Luther Seminary and HealthPartners sites total roughly 170 contiguous acres across three cities, raising questions with residents and nearby property owners about future development near the bucolic intersection of Lauderdale, Falcon Heights and St. Paul.
Potential changes ahead
It’s not just golfers and condo owners who have taken notice of the potential changes ahead.
Naturalists note the golf course’s rolling hills host burr trees, cross country skiing trails, coyote paths and other scenic draws. They’re centerpieces of a greenspace corridor that begins, arguably, with the Midland Hills Golf Course in Roseville, if not the Gross National Golf Club and Washburn-McReavy Hillside Cemetery north of Interstate 35W in Minneapolis, and extends down to Breck Woods.
Unlike the old Hillcrest and Ford sites, which were privately owned, the prospect of a “massive transfer from quasi-public land to private land” has alarmed Ann Juergens and other members of the Friends of Breck Woods, who are among those calling for St. Paul, Lauderdale and Falcon Heights to work more closely together to advocate for a balance of responsible development and conservation.
“We need housing. We do,” acknowledged Juergens, who lives in the Zvago Co-Op, a senior cooperative next to Luther Seminary. “But the Breck Woods in Lauderdale is a huge spot for migratory birds because it’s high. If (government agencies) don’t talk to each other, they’re going to have a short little half-mile trail here and there, instead of a two-mile trail. People have used those trails for decades.”
“I would say HealthPartners is doing its best to stay under the radar, and Luther Seminary is doing the same,” added Juergens, who noted the woods are small enough that other conservation groups have ignored them. “Now it’s very hard to find out what is going on. And the university has been very close to the vest. They haven’t had a public vetting of the proposals they’ve received, and they don’t have to. We will find out when the regents find out what proposal they recommend.”
Nearby residents who have reached out to the U, individual regents and Luther Seminary say they’ve received limited additional information, though HealthPartners did make a presentation to the St. Anthony Park District Council this month. There are calls for St. Paul, Falcon Heights, Lauderdale and Ramsey County officials to create a public sounding board across municipal boundaries.
“You’ve got HealthPartners, and the seminary, and the folks looking to develop there, and the university, who are all not necessarily talking to each other, as far as I can tell,” said Schumacher, who takes in sweeping sunset views over the Les Bolstad course from the balcony of 1666 Coffman, his age 55-plus condo building.
“This is a huge production, and it would make sense to have some coordination,” he added. “The lack of understanding of the community relations piece, the idea that you might be in touch with the community, that’s what’s concerning, the sense that everything will come down as a fait accompli. They seem to be a little bit distant to the community.”
Falcon Heights girds for change
The golf course spans about 124 acres north of Larpenteur Avenue and about 16 acres south of Larpenteur, all of it directly bordered by Roseville, Lauderdale and historic Gibbs Farm. Once the university sells the property, it would automatically revert to R-1, or residential single-family zoning, according to the city of Falcon Heights.
It may not retain that zoning for long.
Since last June, when the U announced its planned sale, Falcon Heights has launched a city visioning committee consisting of two city council members and three members of the Planning Commission. They laid out principles for development, alongside the city’s 2024 “Larpenteur and Snelling Corridor Development Study,” which also predicted a potential sale of the course.
“The Met Council directs that we have an average of 25 units per acre,” said Falcon Heights City Council Member James Mogen, in an email Thursday. “At 141 acres, less approximately 30% for parks and streets, that means it’s not hard to hit 2500 new units. But that also assumes the project would only have residential development, and I am advocating for a mix of uses and a diversity in our tax base.’
“I personally expect the proposal from the eventual developer to be closer to 1500 residential units, which could result in about 3000-3500 new neighbors,” he said.
Falcon Heights hired a planning consultant from engineering firm Bolton & Menk to assist with a master planning process, with the goal of forming two advisory bodies — a Technical Advisory Committee and a Community Advisory Committee. The TAC will likely include representatives from partner agencies such as Ramsey County, the Metropolitan Council and local watershed districts.
The CAC, which will include city and community representatives, will work with the university and the developer on rezoning, among a long list of infrastructure questions that will need to be addressed, said Falcon Heights City Administrator Jack Linehan. Those zoning controls likely offer the city some leverage.
“To be able to build on that site, for a developer there’s a lot of steps they have to do — everything from comprehensive plan amendments, rezoning, planning for infrastructure, getting sewer, water, stormwater needs,” Linehan said.
Environmental factors
Before infrastructure is installed, the site will have to be brought up to modern environmental standards, which are especially stringent for residential development.
At the Heights in St. Paul, removing over 110,000 tons of contaminated soil primarily containing mercury from the former Hillcrest Golf Course took five months.
At Les Bolstad, two applications used to control weeds and fungus were halted in 1993, but remnants of toxic mercury and an herbicide containing toxic arsenic likely run several feet deep, said Judy Helgen, a Falcon Heights resident and retired research scientist with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Preliminary soil analysis from Braun Intertec, included with the U’s RFP, found arsenic in all samples and mercury in 10 of 19 tests, with five of the 10 mercury samples exceeding standards for residential development.
“Soil will likely have to be excavated down to 2.5 feet to meet residential standards and hauled away to a designated landfill,” said Helgen, who is opposed to future development on the golf course. “It’s a greenspace in an area that really doesn’t have a lot. It’s a treasure. I can’t understand it.”
‘These opportunities are really huge for us’
The university has been weighing options around the Les Bolstad Golf Course since at least 2019, when conversations with donors and potential development partners fell flat. The U estimates it would cost upwards of $10 million to “replace failing infrastructure and modernize outdated facilities,” reads the latest statement from university officials. “In the current financial environment, we must focus philanthropic engagement on areas with greater mission alignment and donor interest.”
The U first offered the land for sale to Falcon Heights, Ramsey County and the state, but got no takers, officials said. Still, Ramsey County’s Community and Economic Development team has been monitoring discussions, said Ramsey County Commissioner Garrison McMurtrey, who represents Falcon Heights and St. Anthony Park.
“These opportunities are really huge for us,” McMurtrey said. “We’re the second-most densely populated county, but geographically, we’re the smallest, and we’re fully developed. In Ramsey County, 14% of our properties are tax exempt. That’s more than any other county in the seven-county metro.”
While St. Paul, Falcon Heights and Lauderdale are the ultimate land-use authorities for development within their boundaries, McMurtrey noted that the county has access to important funding, such as an Environmental Resource Fund that could help with environmental cleanup, a Critical Corridors fund that could back business development, federal Community Development Block Grant funds and housing dollars.
Several properties will not be included in the sale, including the John W. Mooty Golf Facility and the adjacent outdoor short-game training area used by the U’s men’s and women’s golf teams, as well as the Elizabeth Lyle Robbie Stadium, used by the women’s soccer team. The KUOM radio tower also is not included.
Proceeds from the sale will be directed into “areas more directly aligned with our core mission of teaching, research, and service,” reads the U statement. “Final decisions will be made through the appropriate governance and budget processes, but our focus is on supporting long-term institutional priorities, with a focus on the St. Paul campus.”
Luther Seminary Upper Campus
Founded in 1869, Luther Seminary enrolls just 400 students, many of them taking their courses primarily online rather than on the 26-acre campus. Most of its active academic buildings sit off Fulham Street between Hendon Avenue and Como Avenue, while several buildings on the lower campus toward Lauderdale are no longer used by the campus community.
As of now, the seminary is officially looking for a new home in the Twin Cities metro, one offering nearby student housing.
“Luther Seminary is in the process of divesting from our current physical campus, which no longer serves our mission as effectively as it once did,” reads a written announcement this month to community partners. “We are actively engaged in a process to identify new space that aligns with our needs going forward.”
“Luther Seminary will remain an accredited, degree-granting graduate school of theology and ministry with a physical presence” in the metro, according to the statement.
The timing of the sale of the upper campus — which includes the Olson Campus Center off Hendon Avenue, as well as Bockman Hall and Gullixson Hall off Como Avenue — “is still to be determined,” according to the seminary. Bockman Hall sits on the National Register of Historic Places, as does the wood-frame Old Muskego Church, built in Wisconsin in 1844.
“For the main campus, I know the seminary got offers, but they didn’t get offers they thought were reasonable to accept,” said Sherman Eagles, who sits on the St. Anthony Park Community Council’s land-use committee.
“The lawn in front of Bockman Hall that stretches down to the corner of Como and Luther Place, that’s really treated as a park by the neighborhood, and there’s a lot of concern about losing the greenspace in that corner,” Eagles added.
Luther Seminary Lower Campus
The lower campus spans Stub Hall, Northwestern Hall and Breck Woods in Lauderdale. The seminary hopes to close on the sale this year of the lower campus to Lifestyle Communities, an Edina-based developer that specializes in properties for ages 62 and up. A concept plan presented to the Lauderdale City Council last fall for the “Artessa” included a senior cooperative within Breck Woods, as well as small condominium buildings and single-family homes in St. Paul. They totaled some 230 residential units or more, including about 68 units within the woods itself.
“When we receive the necessary approvals to move forward with the project, we will be able to start taking reservations for the co-op,” reads the Artessa website, which is already accepting contact information from prospective residents.
Lauderdale City Administrator Heather Butkowski said the city is currently reviewing the proposal, which must adhere to a special zoning category that calls for a mix of high-density residential units surrounded by conservation land. In addition, the city maintains a 2-acre conservation easement around a large stormwater pond.
Lifestyle Communities, founded by chief executive officer Tim Nichols, previously partnered with Ecumen to develop the Zvago Cooperative in St. Anthony Park, which is located next to Gullixson Hall. Efforts to reach Lifestyle Communities for comment were unsuccessful on Wednesday.
McMurtrey, the Ramsey County commissioner, has encouraged Lifestyle Communities to explore adding more affordable housing, which the county’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority could potentially back financially through its housing fund.
“The last time I spoke with folks from Lifestyle, one thing I had proposed and gotten them connected to was Habitat for Humanity,” he said. “We’re trying to do our due diligence to bring in all the right players.”
HealthPartners
HealthPartners, which has maintained a clinic at Como Avenue and Eustis Street in St. Paul since 1957, plans to break ground this summer on a larger new clinic just across the street to the north, on land acquired from Luther Seminary before the pandemic.
What will happen to the 2500 Como Ave. facility?
“We are planning to shift all care to the new clinic,” reads an unsigned statement issued by HealthPartners on Wednesday. “We will be thoughtfully exploring with the community and city redevelopment options for the current site that support the long-term needs of the community.”
Nate McCallister, acting executive director of the SonShine Learning Center on Eustis Street in Lauderdale, said construction of the HealthPartners facility will eliminate their use of the vacant field, as well as playground equipment in the field, and complicate access to Breck Woods.
“Last month, we were able to come to an agreement with the owner of Greenway Village Apartments to let us use their outdoor space for our daily activities. That will allow us to meet our licensing requirements,” said McCallister, in an email. “We’ve been very fortunate and grateful.”
“If we decide to close in the coming years, this will be just one factor among many that currently challenge the existence of early learning programs like ours,” he said.
Imani Cruzen contributed to this report.