If the Minnesota Legislature doesn’t come through next year with funding for a top-to-bottom renovation of the recently-renamed Grand Casino Arena in downtown St. Paul, what’s the likelihood that the favorite hockey team up and moving to, say, Bloomington?
“We’ve never thought about moving, trying to figure out where else we can go to try and get something done,” said Matt Majka, chief executive officer of the Minnesota Wild, during a live broadcast on Monday from the St. Paul Hotel. “St. Paul is our home. We believe in this city and we’re going to make it happen.”
Majka joined St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and representatives of the city council, the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, Securian, Sherman Associates, the St. Paul Saints, the St. Paul Area Chamber and Morrissey Hospitality for an hour-long forum on the future of downtown St. Paul. Moderated by Fox 9 news anchor Randy Meier and broadcast live online by the news station, the forum drew consensus among the group that the capital city’s historic downtown draws thousands of visitors when major events are happening at Grand Casino Arena, Rice Park and Mears Parks, but it struggles to draw outsiders when there aren’t.
“We’re probably as good today as we’ve ever been getting those big events,” said Carter, who said the challenge since the pandemic has become convincing visitors to stick around and enjoy downtown after games and Ordway shows, or when there’s no major spectacle to draw them. “We’re kind of a ‘best kept secret’ city. … We have the Midwest ailment where when we’re excited about something … we make sure no one (hears) about it. We have to break that habit.”
Council President Rebecca Noecker agreed.
“When people visit downtown St. Paul, what I hear them say is ‘charming, historic … and walkable,’” Noecker said. “You can see all the highlights of downtown St. Paul in two hours … but the key is to getting people to want to take that walk.”
Reopening storefronts
Reopening street-level storefronts will be key to restoring vitality downtown, said Richard Dobransky, president of Morrissey Hospitality, which operates the St. Paul Hotel and the St. Paul Grill, as well as catering at the RiverCentre convention center.
“We’re now the host to three different cruise lines who embark or depart from here,” Dobransky said, and those visitors “don’t have a car. They want to walk around this area and spend money, and we don’t really give them a lot of opportunities to spend money. We bus them out to other areas.”
“The street-level retail has got to come back,” he added. “A great example is (Thai and Lao restaurant) Ruam Mit … They are now expanding into the space next door. … We hear from residents, ‘yeah, we go to Ruam Mit twice a week.’ We need more Ruam Mits.”
Downtown Alliance revitalization strategy
Meier largely focused the forum on a downtown revitalization strategy drawn up on behalf of the Downtown Alliance. It calls for attracting 20,000 new residents, 20,000 more workers and increasing visitors by 20%, as well as addressing perceptions of crime and public safety downtown.
“We have not had a problem bringing our employees back downtown when it’s safe,” said Chris Hilger, president and chief executive officer of Securian Financial. “There has been a perception and some reality around downtown safety needs, but I think it’s being addressed.”
Tom Whaley, an executive vice president with the St. Paul Saints, said litter and vandalism create a sense of neglect, which feeds into fear.
“If it’s dirty, if there’s graffiti … when you come in from Woodbury, when you come in from Roseville, it’s how does it look? It’s almost instantaneous,” Whaley said. “We don’t have problems during events. If we start there, I really think that’s clear. It’s how does it look?”
Chris Sherman of real estate development company Sherman Associates said downtown St. Paul is well positioned to transition some of its vacant office buildings into housing. St. Paul has an “atypical” number of “historic buildings that are going to be good candidates for conversion,” said Sherman, who called “live/work/play” branding key to filling empty spaces even when office workers have gone home.
Joe Spencer, president of the Downtown Alliance, noted that the architecture and planning firm Gensler evaluated 20 downtown office buildings and found 50% of them to hold promise as future residences, compared to 30% of the 1,400 buildings the firm had analyzed nationwide.
Arena renovation
Hilger and others agreed that the renovation of the 25-year-old arena is essential for the future of downtown.
Carter and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold asked lawmakers last March for nearly $400 million in state appropriations bonds to fund nearly half of a $769 million renovation of what was then known as the Xcel Energy Center, as well as the adjoining RiverCentre Convention Center and Roy Wilkens Auditorium. With time running out on the legislative session, the two later reduced their late-in-the-session ask, but were unable to draw funding for a scaled-down version of the same project.
“We’ve downsized that project to make it more affordable,” Majka said. “We’ve listened to the feedback we’ve heard from the Legislature. We’ve turned it from a tear-down and complete rebuild of Roy Wilkens (Auditorium), to really a focus on the arena. We’ve taken it down to a $450 million project, with a $50 million request to the state, $200 million mostly from the city and $200 million from the Wild.”
“That’s far less on both a percentage basis and on a real dollars basis than, let’s say, Target Field or U.S. Bank Stadium,” Majka added. “But again, I don’t begrudge those, because these are community assets. We all need to maintain these buildings for the good of our communities and cities. We will continue to work with the mayor and his staff, who have been great partners in this effort. And we will find a way to get it done because it must be done for the community and the city’s sake.”
Asked by Meier how quickly that could happen, Majka responded: “As soon as people see the light. And again, I don’t see it as an option that it can’t be renovated. It has to be renovated. These buildings require that. They have to stay up with the times, for HVAC, and cabling, and safety and flow through the arena. It has to change with the times.”
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