Bob and Carolyn Nechal on their back patio, pointing out the improvements they’ve made to their garden. The couple have lived in their home on Selby Avenue across from St. Thomas for over 50 years, but they said that recent decisions by the university have changed their neighborhood for the worse. (Kevin Lynch/The Crest) 
Bob Nechal speaks to Carolyn Nechal in their living room. He said that he joined several neighborhood organizations to express his concerns to St. Thomas but was left frustrated by the university’s response. (Kevin Lynch/The Crest) 
Carolyn Nechal sits in her living room. She said that when they moved in, the real estate agent described St. Thomas as “a small college in a small city,” but it has grown both geographically and financially since then. (Kevin Lynch/The Crest)
From their idyllic porch on Selby Avenue, Bob and Carolyn Nechal have watched decades of conflict between the University of St. Thomas and its neighbors, from zoning clashes and home demolitions to noise complaints and student misbehavior.
Their first sign of trouble came shortly after they bought the house in 1974, when they noticed university advertisements promoting free parking — with photos of their street.
“They were backed up with their dorm students, and they had also just built a building without any involvement from the community,” Bob said. “… No parking, because of course you got free parking in the neighborhood.”
Neighbors’ new reality
In the 52 years since the couple moved in, the Nechals have seen their street transform from entirely single-family homes to just five in 2026, including theirs. The rest, they said, were either refurbished or demolished to be turned into rentals for St. Thomas students.
St. Thomas director of neighborhood relations Jerome Benner said that the explosion of rentals to the north and west of St. Thomas’ campus is symptomatic of the unmet demand for on-campus housing. Benner said the university turned away roughly 500 students from on-campus housing last year.
“I think if we can help support getting students out of the neighborhood, that should help kind of temper some of the development,” Benner said.
The university’s solution is more on-campus housing, Benner said, specifically on its mid-campus blocks bound by Cretin, Cleveland, Summit and Grand avenues. But the university has faced strong resistance from neighbors in the area, as it would need city permission to amend a conditional use permit that dictates how the land can be used — including limiting the height of any proposed new dorm halls.
The university’s frustration comes as little surprise to Bob and Carolyn, who said that the richer, more involved residents of the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood to the southeast of St. Thomas have more sway over issues like the mid-campus CUP and proposed Summit Avenue bike paths.
The Nechals live in Union Park, which surrounds the university to the north of Summit Avenue. Bob said their neighborhood, which is more diverse than Mac-Groveland “in all kinds of ways,” hasn’t been as fortunate.
In 2012, a special zoning district was created for the neighborhood surrounding St. Thomas to prevent the neighborhood from becoming “disrupted” with student housing, according to the ordinance. But 2023 changes to St. Paul’s zoning code created new opportunities for developers, allowing student rentals to be approved faster and closer together than before.
Roughly a third of the special zoning district is in Macalester-Groveland, but Union Park has borne over three times as many student rentals as the Mac-Groveland area, according to data from the City of St. Paul’s recently phased-out mapping system.
A student-ful day in the neighborhood
The Nechals’ house, with its gentle tiered roofs, lattice wood fence, colorful garden and slender brick chimney, has seen its fair share of student neighbors, especially since 2023.
Bob said that the renters are often respectful — “I’ll take football players any day” — though Carolyn noted that during daytime parties, “their parents are really louder than they are.” They’ve had good relations with their student neighbors on the other side, too.
“They buy cheap beer, and I tell them they’re not getting full value and where to get good value and good beer,” Bob said.
Bob also said that the smaller units in newly-built student rentals have also been something of a blessing in disguise: “ (They’re) tough to have a big party house in … it put the kibosh on that.”
But when they’re not interacting with them face-to-face, some students have been less hospitable, especially when it comes to the Nechals’ support of progressive causes over the years.
Before moving to Minnesota, the couple lived in Chicago for the first few years of their marriage because Bob had registered as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. On Selby, the Nechals have had yard signs advocating against the war in Iraq and later Iran stolen, and one of their garden’s stone blocks was thrown through their picture window at night. The couple has also lost half a dozen Black Lives Matters signs to suspected student vandals over the years.
“It’s a pretty conservative place, and that’s the way it is,” Bob said. “They love our garden. They love talking to us. They’re friendly when we’re friendly — we’re always friendly, so that’s easy.”
Bob said he holds the university responsible for its students’ behavior. The neighborhood’s darkest days were from the 2000s to the mid-2010s, he said, when St. Thomas was a drinking campus. Bob said a conversation with students partying past curfew would often elicit the response: “‘Get real. We’re St. Thomas students, and this is what we do.’”
The university did step in by supporting curfews and noise ordinances, though Bob said they likely had their own interests at heart.
“They realized that that was going badly for them to appeal to people, so they pulled in the reins,” Bob said. “… Their self-interest, being a moneyed college, wanted to attract big money, and they were, at that time, fundraising for a lot of big buildings.”
The neighborhood has still seen shades of that era: Derby Days celebrations in May caused particular backlash from neighbors, though Benner said that recent enforcement measures implemented since then have had positive results.
Staying put
When the Nechals moved in, Carolyn said there was no way of knowing what the College of St. Thomas would eventually become.
“I saw the small college there, and they said: ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s a small college in a small city,” Carolyn said. “Of course, it’s only the capitol.”
Bob said the notion that St. Thomas’ neighbors should have known what they were in for when they moved is “BS.” He participated with some neighborhood committees years ago out of a desire to communicate neighbors’ concerns but said he was disillusioned by the university’s response.
“They went aside, and it reinforced the antagonism,” Bob said. “So it just is pretty stiff — and they deserve it. Out of all the campuses I know, including the University of Minnesota, Dinkytown, the reputation of St. Thomas is the bottom.”
The couple, for whom 52 years of their 58-and-a-half year marriage have been spent on Selby Avenue, said their roots in the area are what’s kept them put.
Their two children were born and raised in the neighborhood “back when there were kids everywhere,” and the couple helped found multiple magnet schools in the area. Their daughter was in the first class of one such Spanish immersion magnet school, they said, and now works as a bilingual therapist in Spanish and English.
Bob and Carolyn have also made the house their own over the decades, despite what they describe as sharply-declined property values based on the state of their neighborhood.
From installing a fireplace and wood accents inside to improving the insulation and even attempting to set up solar panels last year, the Nechals have kept their home up to date; in fact, Bob said, the house uses less energy now than it did when they bought it. Despite currently being on recovery from hip replacement surgery, Bob talks of plans to “get it fixed up” completely in the near future.
But in the end, the Nechals have a pessimistic vision for their home: they’ll finish repairing it before they die, it will sell for $200-300,000 less than it’s worth, then that buyer will move out in 5 years’ time — and that person won’t care if they sell it to an opportunistic developer looking to turn it into rentals.
“We’re old; we’re gonna fade away pretty soon, and we made a decision to stay here because when you get to our age, moving into places, (there’s) a lot of new people and relationships,” Bob said. “So we’re staying here. We like the neighbors we have here, we like the community.”
Bob said that in 30 years, his street will be 100% rentals, “no question.”
“Let nature take its course,” Bob said. “It’s not nature, but that’s what it would be.”
Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu.
