Downtown St. Paul on the Cusp of Major Redevelopment

The week of February 17 saw some major development news for downtown St. Paul, including a potential $130 development project and the creation of a new organization focused exclusively on facilitating downtown development.

But, according to City Council President Rebecca Noecker, while both are major announcements, there is a lot happening to help reinvigorate downtown St. Paul.

“There are a lot of residential units that are going to be coming online in relatively short order here with Landmark pre-leasing imminently and the Stella on Wabasha moving along,” she said. “Pedro Park is going to be opening this summer and a lot of the construction work will be wrapping up.”

She also said that there is support at the Capitol for funding the City’s plans for an office-to-residential conversion of buildings downtown, which is a major redevelopment goal of the City.

“There’s a lot of bipartisan support for that,” she said.

Central Station Redevelopment

Perhaps the biggest development news around downtown was the proposed $130 million mixed-use development, which would bring in 300 new units of housing and add 10,000 square feet of retail to the Central Station block, which has been a vacant space since 2011 when the Midwest Federal Building was removed to make way for Greenline Construction.

On February 19, the Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) designated Flaherty and Collins as the tentative developer of the Central Station block. 

While that doesn’t mean shovels will be hitting the ground immediately on the project, it moves the parcel a bit closer to having some new life.

The designation gives the HRA and the Metropolitan Council, who jointly own the block, exclusive rights to negotiate with Flaherty and Collins on the proposed development over the next several months before any sale is finalized.

“We’re essentially dating, we’re not getting married,” Noecker said. “But we’re exclusively dating and have the opportunity to now do the kind of due diligence and work with us to refine the proposal, with the assurance that we’re not talking to somebody else on the side.”

While Noecker said the current concept isn’t ideal, she would like to see it encompass the station area more rather than have two separate buildings on either side with a skyway connection between them, there is a lot to like about the proposal.

“I was always talking about this as a skyline defining tower, and people kept saying, ‘well, oh, you know, set your hopes,’” she said. “I feel like there’s nothing wrong with shooting high and 20 stories is certainly exciting.”

Not only does Noecker feel that this will be transformative to the downtown skyline, but it has the ability to fundamentally change the experience of downtown.

“It’s important to really make sure they’re maximizing the first floor commercial space,” Noecker said. “When we have people living there and shopping there, that’s going to fundamentally transform how that area operates from a safety standpoint.”

The HRA designated Flaherty and Collins as their developer at their February 19 meeting. The next step is for the Metropolitan Council to take a similar action at their March 12 meeting. 

From there, there are several milestones, including beginning to engage community groups this spring, with preliminary designs by the end of the year. 

The City is hoping to complete site plan review, building permits, licensing and any zoning amendments by summer 2026, with a final sale of the property to Flaherty & Collins by the end of 2026.

Investing in Downtown

According to Dave Higgins, the President of the newly formed Downtown Development Corporation (DDC), while the proposed redevelopment of Central Station is a major milestone in downtown, there is a lot more the fledgling organization hopes to accomplish, even though it is only about two weeks old.

“There is a sense of urgency from the stakeholders to deliver some results,” said Higgins. “But there is a balance, we are trying to solve for 50-75 years.”

Higgins said that the DDC, which is associated with the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, is using the recently produced Downtown Investment Strategy as a guide and has four main goals: Increase investment in downtown, add 20,000 residents to the area, maximize property tax revenue and improve the experience for everyone in downtown.

He said that, in order to achieve those goals, there is a lot that needs to  be done, but they aren’t starting from scratch.

 “We need to reinvent as few wheels as possible,” Higgins said. “Many cities have similar initiatives and we can use lessons learned from those places.”

That includes tactics like streamlining processes, getting the most out of the economic resources available and ensuring developers have the incentives and support they need to get projects started.

That said, they are starting where there is existing energy, including the office to residential conversion of several buildings in downtown as well as pursuing what to do with the Madison Equities portfolio, which is eight properties in downtown, including high profile sites like the First National Bank, US Bank and Alliance Bank buildings, that have been for sale since last May.

“The Madison equities properties are a primary focus right now,” said Higgins. “But we need to have flexibility if an opportunity comes along, you sure as heck want to make sure something happens.”

While there are several groups working on development in the city, Noecker said that she believes that the addition of the DDC is important for the revitalization of downtown.

 “It always helps to have something that’s solely focused on an area that needs attention,” she said. “Unlike the Port [Authority], unlike the HRA, that would be solely focused on downtown St. Paul redevelopment.”

“And perhaps more importantly,” Noecker continued, “this would be a vehicle, the financial and legal vehicle, to combine the kinds of different capital that we need and do the real estate negotiations that we need.” 

So while Higgins says that we are near the bottom of a market downturn downtown, things are looking up.

“The scale of the problem downtown is the scale of the opportunity,” he said.

Learn more:

See the presentation to the HRA on the proposed Central Station development stpaul.granicus.com/player/clip/5171?meta_id=626538. 

Learn more about the work of the DDC on downtown development stpdowntownalliance.org/ddc.