With utilities scheduled to be turned off at the Alliance Bank Center in downtown St. Paul on Tuesday, a former commercial tenant has found a new home in the suburbs, just north of the capital city.
Allegra Marketing Print Mail and Image360, which had been situated at three different locations within the Alliance Bank Center across 18 years, opened Monday at 2043 County Road E., just off White Bear Avenue in White Bear Lake. Longtime franchise owner Jim Flaherty said with the help of his printing partners, business has continued uninterrupted, even during a surprise relocation that came together in weeks.
“We were wheeling in our big presses while they were gluing down the carpet on Friday afternoon,” said Flaherty, who is leasing 5,000 square feet of strip mall space from Jim Kelly of Kelly Bros. “We’re operational enough to actually conduct commerce right now.”
“It will be all day tomorrow too — moving, more moving,” said Flaherty on Monday. “All the supplies — 18 years, it’s not an easy move.”
Utilities to be cut
On March 10, tenants of the Alliance Bank Center received an unexpected notice from property owner Madison Equities to vacate the building immediately as it would soon be losing its utilities, the latest setback for what had been downtown St. Paul’s largest property owner. City officials confirmed electricity was scheduled to be cut on March 12, but the mayor’s office negotiated with Xcel Energy and District Energy to extend the timeframe to April 1.
That left tenants with about three weeks to find new spaces, negotiate new leases and relocate offices and retail equipment, from computers and filing cabinets to pizza ovens, jewelry vaults and in Flaherty’s case, printing presses.
“I own a signage company but I haven’t had time to make my own signage, not even a banner,” Flaherty said. “We’ve just been mad scrambling.”
Flaherty said the new location, within a strip mall containing an auto parts store and a driving school, has ample parking and will be a safer and more seemly destination for customers, though many accounts are now virtual.
Alliance Bank Center “is just a disaster of a building right now,” Flaherty said. “It kept getting worse and worse, especially these last seventh months. You’ve got the light rail hub right there, which hasn’t been the safest place.”
The franchise serves both walk-in and national accounts like Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bagels, offering printing, marketing consultation, graphic design and copywriting, among other services.
“It’s not crucial anymore to have that walk-up business, and we certainly didn’t have it for the last several months with the (Alliance Bank Center) building being on lockdown,” Flaherty said. “A lot of what we have are national accounts. … Those guys don’t mind where we are.”
Some tenants find new digs fast
Several other skyway tenants that offer walk-up retail — including Paul A. Hartquist Jewelers, Skyway Mart, Pino’s Pizzeria and Greenwolf Hemp and Organics — plan to reopen within the skyway in the Town Square building at 444 Cedar St.
Alliance Bank left the building about nine months ago, relocating three blocks away to Wells Fargo Place at 30 East Seventh St. Around the same time, the accounting firm Redpath and Company relocated to the Securian Center building on Robert Street.
Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services — the Alliance Bank Center’s largest remaining office tenant as of March — was still packing up two floors of office space last week, including some 60 staff members, many of them attorneys and paralegals. Some staff will use a smaller satellite office at University Avenue and Syndicate Street, but others will work from home until the firm, which offers free legal representation in civil cases to those in need, finds a new home.
As of late last week, the ice cream and sandwich stand Rico’s on Wabasha also was looking for a new location.
On March 14, the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections announced that the Alliance Bank Center skyway will close at 9 p.m. on weekdays and remain closed on weekends. With Madison Equities no longer supporting electricity, trash pick-up or security, it’s unclear what building access will look like moving forward.
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