With no small amount of pride, property managers associated with Madison Equities led tours of the Degree of Honor building in 2021, showing off the former office building’s full-scale conversion into 78 housing units.
Built in the 1960s by an insurance company and women’s organization, the 10-story, granite-exterior “skyscraper” was the first building in downtown St. Paul to boast of its own air conditioning, among other highlights of its era.
The three years after its grand reopening as residences were not kind to the Degree of Honor building, leading some unhappy tenants last August to attend community meetings related to another ailing Madison Equities property in the same general corner of downtown — the troubled Lowry Apartments — which have since been condemned and boarded up by the city.
The death of Madison Equities principal Jim Crockarell in January 2024 appears to have sped the decline for the Degree of Honor, the Lowry Apartments and the company’s many other downtown properties, nine of which were put up for sale together weeks after his death.
Minnwest Bank acquired the Degree of Honor building last December for $9.58 million in a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure sale, but it didn’t hold onto the property for long. The building has been sold again.
In late June, Altitude Capital Partners, a Chicago firm, purchased the Degree of Honor building from Minnwest Bank for $11.1 million, under the name 325 Cedar Acquisition, LLC, according to state sales records. The transaction, involving a new mortgage and limited warranty deed, included a $1.67 million downpayment.
The Degree of Honor building held an estimated market value of $15 million in 2022 and $12.57 million in 2025, according to Ramsey County property records.
For Altitude Capital Partners, this is at least the third recent residential purchase in downtown St. Paul.
The same company this year previously acquired The Jax, a 48-unit apartment building at 253 Fourth St. E. in Lowertown for $8 million, and last December paid $9 million for R7 Lofts, a boutique 48-unit apartment building at 133 E. Seventh St. in Lowertown, according to Finance and Commerce.
A call to Altitude Capital Partners was not immediately returned on Thursday morning.
Other Madison Equities properties that were put up for sale in April 2024 include the First National Bank building, the Alliance Center, 375 Jackson Square, the U.S. Bank Center, Empire Building/Endicott Arcade and Park Square Court. Some properties, like the U.S. Bank Center and Park Square Court building, are now under court-ordered receivership.
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