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The March 31 news article "Imagining a new life for 5th St." was typical in that it describes a problem in downtown St. Paul and how city leaders intend to fix it. Such articles are necessary, but I worry that — if people only read such articles — they will never know what's already great about life in downtown St. Paul.

Having moved into a condo near Mears Park last year, my husband and I have been living the downtown St. Paul life, and we have never been happier. We can walk everyplace and have gone months without driving. We can go out for morning coffee at the Lost Fox, the Buttered Tin, or Saint City Catering. We get fresh vegetables and flowers at the farmers market every weekend for ridiculously low prices.

We've been to Saints games, and we can even keep track of the games while walking our dog in the adjacent dog park. On warm evenings, we have enjoyed weekly live music and movie nights in Mears Park. For exercise, we do a daily brisk walk either outside, or by looping through the skyways when the weather is inclement. We like to take breaks in our walks to visit the Minnesota Museum of American Art, browse through SubText Books or watch the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform.

When we have grandchildren, we will take them to the Children's Museum and the Science Museum. If they like hockey, maybe we will even take them to a Wild game.

There are so many places to go out for dinner or craft brews in the evenings, including Saint Dinette, the St. Paul Hotel, the Loon Cafe, the Bulldog Lowertown, Barrel Theory Beer Company, Dark Horse, Big River Pizza, and MetroNOME Brewery for live jazz. We have not yet seen a performance at the Palace Theatre, but we can't wait to do so!

We love our condo neighbors, and we've enjoyed game nights, pizza nights, a Super Bowl party, holiday parties and all sorts of social activities with them. This week, my next-door neighbor is going to teach some of us how to play mah-jongg! I feel safer here in my condo, with everyone around to hear if there's a problem, than I did in our previous Edina neighborhood. (We had great neighbors in Edina as well, but the houses in our neighborhood were so spread out that a thief could break in and none of our neighbors would have heard anything.)

In terms of budgeting, we were able to invest the difference between the selling price of our Edina home and the purchase price of our St. Paul condo. We also sold our yard rakes, shovels and snowblower, and we will never need to do those chores again! When looking at condos, we checked out some units in downtown Minneapolis, but for the same price as a hole-in-the-wall condo there, we were able to get a two-story loft in a 1905 historic St. Paul building with exposed brick, enormous wood beams, 20-foot-high ceilings and incredible views of the sunset from our rooftop patio.

I realize downtown St. Paul, including a stretch along 5th Street, has some issues. However, if that's all people see, then they aren't seeing the full — and truly wonderful — picture of life in downtown St. Paul.

Amy Minge lives in St. Paul.