Thank you to the recent signers of the petition. Here's the latest. Thanks for helping to preserve this community asset.
- Updates
- Event + Ice Cream: Saturday, May 16, 5:00-6:00 pm
- Take Action
- Recent Letters to the Editor
Updates
Timing is critical for saving Bolstad because there’s no maintenance on the course and it becomes more difficult to get it back once it ‘goes to seed’.
The recent press coverage from the Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press has made more people aware of the issue.
Here is what we know:
The University of Minnesota administration has been working on closing a deal with a developer by late summer.
They were not interested in a proposal from 2nd Swing to build a new clubhouse for over $12M and to pay for any deferred maintenance, one of the reasons given to us for their decision to sell. Also denied: MTI (Toro), Three Rivers Park District, and their respective plans to preserve the green space.
The practice range and green fees profited over a half million dollars last year, and the course has been in the black the previous four years. But there is no budging from the University’s administration.
Of course, the regents would still need to approve any purchase.
There is reportedly one, possibly more, developers with whom they are in talks about a sale. There’s been ongoing soil testing. (The U communicated that this was the reason that the range could not be kept open for now.)
The soil tests so far have revealed high levels of arsenic and mercury. A phD in soils states that the desired option is to keep the soil in place. The contaminations are currently embedded in the soil it is safe to use as a recreational area.
A development plan, however, would require soil remediation. Remediation involves removing contaminated soil and trucking it to a disposal site. Due to the unusually high levels of contaminants, bulldozers would have to dig deep down, and the trees would have to be removed. The recent development at Hillcrest required daily trucking for months, and contaminated dust collected on cars in the surrounding neighborhood.
This information was not available when the University announced the sale and the City of Falcon Heights announced its development idea in 2003.
Soil contamination is one of the reasons developers have backed away. In addition, the fact that peat moss makes up most of the property. The estimates for a potential sale are as low as $10-15M, while the estimate for the development they’re proposing is upwards of $300M.
The City of Falcon Heights has issued an advisory council. The proposal involves rezoning the property from public use to residential use.
There are some simple things that everyone can do to help out and make a difference.
Event
Protest party at the Grove Park, located on Coffman Street just south of Larpenteur, on Saturday, May 16, at 5:00 pm
Attend the protest, which will be covered by local media, including the Minnesota Star Tribune.
(There will be an ice cream truck!)
Take Action
Write a brief statement about your views.
And please send it!
Find meeting times and regent contact info here: https://regents.umn.edu/
Also, let your legislators and other relevant decision makers know how you feel about the U’s plans.
As always, please contact us at savebolstad@gmail.com with any ideas or suggestions.
Thank you!
Recent Letters to the Editor in the StarTribune
Thank you for the continued coverage of efforts to preserve the Les Bolstad Golf Course (“Taking a swing at saving U golf course,” April 26). As a former cross-country runner, I agree with Tim Kersey, the head cross-country and track and field coach at Como Park High School who was quoted in the article, that the green space is a state meet course with special meaning.
As a state taxpayer, I’m surprised the university would sell a golf course that pays for itself. Maybe it’s only covering day-to-day operations but the cost of updating the course is a small way the university can contribute to the public. And maintaining that course for golfers opens it to the state cross-country meet, winter cross-country skiing and numerous other uses.
How much has the university spent on consultants to advise it on its hospital negotiations with Fairview? That seems like a far more questionable use of public funds than upkeep on a golf course that is highly used by the general public.
Matt Flory, St. Louis Park
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Thanks for Eleanor Hildebrandt’s piece “Taking a swing at saving U golf course” and the letter “U would never need that land?” (Readers Write, April 28). To clarify, the Les Bolstad course shut down in fall of 2025, after 10,500 attended the annual state cross-country running matches. Each year 35,000 used the U golf course, and many thousands teed up at the driving range on Larpenteur Avenue. Also, there were youth camps there, and the U gave veterans golfing lessons for free as part of the PGA Hope program. Up to a couple hundred cross-country skiers used the course daily, depending on weather.
Few seem aware that the course (like most other golf courses) has soils contaminated with toxic mercury, used in a fungicide to control turf snow mold and an herbicide containing toxic arsenic for broad-leaf weed control. Both applications were halted in 1993. To be clear, these toxic chemicals are deeper in the soil and not a risk for golfers today.
Hildebrandt mentions the Hillcrest Golf Course that closed almost 10 years ago, but not its story. The 112-acre Hillcrest Course was contaminated with mercury and arsenic. In order to meet criteria for mercury in a residential development (think not having garden soil laced with mercury) more than 100,000 tons of soil had to be excavated down 1.5 to 2.5 feet and trucked to a permitted landfill. A St. Paul Port Authority person told me that cost “north of 4 million.” A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency colleague of mine, who lives close to Hillcrest, said dump trucks laden with soil passed by their house on McKnight Road every minute all day for months. Soil blew off and coated cars in the neighborhood.
Hillcrest had 112 acres. The U’s Les Bolstad course has 141. Preliminary analysis of its soils found arsenic in all samples and mercury in 10 of 19 tests at levels exceeding standards for residential development. It is likely that huge quantities of contaminated soil will have to be excavated and hauled away.
The Bolstad land supports natural habitats — ponds with frogs, varied birds, pollinator plantings and bee boxes, some peat soils. There are 150 bur oak trees and a few original elms that would likely have to be taken down. Bolstad is a green space in an urban area beloved by many.
A person at the U said the buyer will pay the costs of remediation, that they will be required to enter into “voluntary” cleanup programs at the state Department of Agriculture or the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The site is likely a “brown field” that under previous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules would be investigated and forced to be cleaned up. Will the buyer of Bolstad do proper soil cleanup? Or sell to homeowners whose garden soil might be laced with mercury and arsenic?
Might it be best for everyone not to sell this community treasure? This beloved space?
Judy Helgen, Falcon Heights
The writer is a retired research scientist from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
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U would never need that land?
According to the story on the University of Minnesota’s intent to sell 140 acres adjacent to its St. Paul agricultural campus (used for golf and cross country for many decades), discarding this green space is necessary because whatever money is gained will better align with its educational mission (“Taking a swing at saving U golf course,” April 26). It is curious that just a few years after St. Thomas tried to acquire golf course property nearby its campus for expansion needs (“Town & Country Club rejects St. Thomas bid,” Feb. 24, 2022), the University of Minnesota is in such a hurry to discard its own beautiful property for whatever amount might be offered.
The regents would do well to pause and examine long-term alternative uses rather than allow this acreage to be sold off immediately to address short-term budget issues. Even if it is decided that a golf course, driving range and cross country track are no longer the university’s highest and best uses of the 140 acres, is there no chance the university might find that land useful and even necessary for future endeavors, programs or expansion in the next century? After all, the University of Minnesota owes its existence to the Morrill Act, 7 U.S.C. §§ 301, 304, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, to encourage states such as Minnesota to establish institutions of higher learning for the study of agriculture and mechanics. Retaining 140 acres at the university’s ag campus seems to align perfectly with that historical mission.
Christopher Morris, Edina