St. Paul: National Park Service's visitor center at Science Museum of Minnesota among sites that could be closed

Yahoo

05-03-2025

In downtown St. Paul, the National Park Service Visitor Center within the Science Museum of Minnesota — a draw for kids and families attracted to its eagle-in-flight simulator and other interactive offerings — could soon be shuttered, as could the National Park Service office in the downtown Kellogg Square building. The Federal Highway Administration office in the Great Northern Building at 180 E. Fifth St. is losing its lease.
Elsewhere in Minnesota, a U.S. Geological Survey office in Mounds View and National Park Service office in Crane Lake may join them.
Also targeted for possible closure and sale are a series of federally-owned buildings throughout Minnesota, including the Paul D. Wellstone Federal Building in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Social Security Administration Building, the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling, a motor pool garage at Fort Snelling, the Social Security Administration Building in Austin and the Edward J. Devitt U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Fergus Falls.
The U.S. General Services Administration — the federal government's real estate arm — is under marching orders from the Trump administration to shutter millions of square feet of leased and federally-owned space, and some of those cuts may land in Minnesota, according to circulated listings of locations.
It was unclear when each closure was expected to take effect, but the GSA included several Minnesota structures in its online list of 320 'non-core properties … designated for disposal.' Lease terminations were listed at Doge.gov/savings.
The National Parks Conservation Association on Tuesday objected to the planned closure of some 34 National Parks offices across the country, noting they house visitor amenities, law enforcement offices, museums and hubs for critical park services.
The association pointed out that the Science Museum of Minnesota serves as the headquarters of — and the only visitor center for — the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a 72-mile river park spanning 54,000 acres of outdoor area in Minnesota. The corridor stretches from about Dayton, Minn. to just south of Hastings, flowing through Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington counties.
A call to the visitor center and an email to the National Park Service media line were not immediately returned on Wednesday.
Emma Filar, a spokesperson for the Science Museum, said Tuesday that the museum was still monitoring the situation, but for now, the visitor center — which has operated at the museum since October 2011 — remains open to the public.
'Yes, we're aware of reports that the federal government plans to terminate leases for the National Parks Service,' said Filar, in an email. 'We do not know any further details about the planned lease termination and are not aware of any steps taken. The Visitor Center is open now.'
'The connection to the Mississippi River is one of the reasons why the Science Museum moved to this location on the river bluffs in 1999,' she said. 'The Mississippi River Visitor Center is a valuable resource for our visitors, demonstrating the river's impact on our region's history, biology and culture.'
In addition to the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey, offices likely to be impacted by closures across the nation include those connected with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Minerals Management, Office of the Inspector General, Bureau of Reclamation and others.
Kare11 reported Tuesday that U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith have objected to the closure of several federal buildings, including the Wellstone Building in Minneapolis, which houses federal services such as housing assistance, worker protections and passport processing.
Selling underused federal land is hardly unheard of, but the Trump administration appears poised to take that effort into overdrive, targeting dozens of parks offices that are in active use, as well as hundreds of additional leased and federally-owned offices in public-facing properties.
Well before Trump took office, the GSA began consolidating underused office space around the country, reducing the government's footprint by divesting more than 1,000 federally-owned properties, or 24 million square feet, since 2015, according to the written statement from the GSA last December.
That's in addition to reducing almost 11 million square feet of federally-owned space and almost 18 million square feet of leased space within other buildings and locations. The planned reduction of an additional 1.5 million square feet of leased and owned space was expected to save taxpayers some $475 million over the next 10 years, according to the December statement.
The commercial real estate platform CoStar, which tracks more than 7 million commercial properties nationwide, reported Monday that the U.S. has now canceled one-in-10 active federal commercial real estate leases, adding more than 500 lease terminations from last Friday to last Monday alone. The impacts will be felt in all 50 states.
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