To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to [email protected]. There is no option to place obituaries through our website. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions.

**General Information:**
– Your full name
– Address (City, State, Zip Code)
– Phone number
– An alternate phone number (if any)

**Obituary Specification:**
– Name of Deceased
– Obituary Text
– A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable; TIF and other files are accepted. We will contact you if there are any issues with the photo.
– Ad Run dates

There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply. If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply. Contact us for more information.

**Policies:**

**Verification of Death:**
In order to publish obituaries, a name and phone number of the funeral home or cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home or cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death.

If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification. Please allow enough time to contact them, especially during their limited weekend hours.

A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose, but only one of these two options is necessary.

**Guestbook and Outside Websites:**
We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter.

**Obituary Process:**
Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear. Please review the proof carefully.

We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines. After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing.

**Online:**
Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions.

**Payment Procedure:**
Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents.

– **Credit Card:** Payment accepted by phone only due to PCI (Payment Card Industry) regulations.
– **EFT:** Check by phone. Please provide your routing number and account number.
– **Cash:** Accepted at our front counter Monday-Friday from 8:00 AM to 3:30 PM.

**Rates:**
The minimum charge is $162 for the first 10 lines. Every line after the first 10 is $12.20. If the ad is under 10 lines, it will be charged the minimum rate of $162.

On a second run date, the lines are $8.20 per line, starting with the first line.

For example, if the first run date was 20 lines, the cost would be $164. Each photo published is $125 per day. For example, 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500.

**Deadlines:**
Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested.
Hours Deadline (no exceptions) Ad Photos

**Memoriam (Non-Obituary) Request**
Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries. Please call or email us for more memoriam information.

Please call 651-228-5280 for more information.

**Hours:**
Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (Closed weekends and holidays)

Please submit your memoriam ad to [email protected] or call 651-228-5280.

—

**Development Proposal for Grand Avenue and Victoria Street in St. Paul**

Developer Ari Parritz has requested $3.5 million in financial assistance from the city of St. Paul to establish a six-story, mixed-use building at the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Victoria Street. The site is currently occupied by the Victoria Crossing East Mall and the former Billy’s on Grand restaurant and bar.

Parritz stated on Friday that the requested assistance would be structured as a “redevelopment TIF district.” Tax increment finance (TIF) districts allow property tax proceeds from a real estate development to be used on-site for a number of years, funding certain types of environmental or public-facing improvements.

“It’s being used primarily for blight remediation and other qualified redevelopment costs,” Parritz explained. “The city already did their third-party blight study and it came back substandard on all three buildings. Everything we’ve heard from the city council is supportive of redevelopment here, and an appropriate use of redevelopment TIF. It meets all the statutory requirements.”

The largely residential project, filed under the applicant name 845 Grand LLC, would include 12,800 square feet of commercial and restaurant space on the ground level facing Grand Avenue, 90 market-rate apartments, and one level of underground parking. The parking area would accommodate 23 public parking stalls and 99 residential parking stalls.

The new structure would run about a half-block from 841 to 857 Grand Ave., replacing the longstanding home of Billy’s on Grand, which closed permanently in January. It would also replace the adjacent mall that houses Juut Salon, Paper Source, and the now-closed Trade Winds fashion and accessories boutique, as well as a vacant residential building.

“Juut is coming back into the project,” Parritz noted, mentioning that the beauty salon had found a temporary new home nearby. “They’re going to enter the central retail space in our building, targeted for summer 2027.”

For St. Paul, TIF has become an increasingly common, albeit controversial, funding tool to boost private real estate development, as it allows private developers up to 26 years of tax incentives. The city currently captures about 7.9% of its tax capacity for TIF spending.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) announced on Tuesday that it had awarded St. Paul $350,000 for abatement, demolition, and public infrastructure improvements at the site. DEED officials noted that the project would increase the city’s tax base by $377,000 and leverage $44.2 million in private investment.

**TIF Use**

A recent analysis from the fiscal watchdog group Insight St. Paul found that St. Paul’s tax levies to service TIF district debt increased 40% from 2015 to 2024, growing from $31.6 million to $44.2 million. While some suburbs have also increased TIF use in recent years, the city of Minneapolis actually decreased its TIF spending by more than 50% during the same period.

City Council President Rebecca Noecker expressed support for the project on Friday, stating that with federal government cuts to municipal funding, cities must find their own redevelopment strategies for priorities like Grand Avenue redevelopment.

“I’m supportive,” said Noecker, who represents the area. “It sounds like it’s a project that will bring needed vitality to the neighborhood. TIF is a controversial issue, but it’s a really important tool and it needs to be used judiciously. Those are tax dollars we otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

*Originally Published: October 24, 2025, at 4:10 PM CDT.*
https://www.twincities.com/2025/10/24/developer-asks-st-paul-for-3-5-million-loan-for-housing-retail-at-grand-and-victoria/