At the newly remodeled Landmark Tower on St. Peter Street, fans of tony downtown living can kick up their feet in “The Anjelica,” a 575-square-foot studio that rents for about $1,400 monthly, or upgrade to “The Bruce,” a one-bedroom apartment spanning some 880 square feet, which goes for about $2,260.
Kaylah Kennedy, the property manager at the Landmark Tower Apartments, stands in one of the bedrooms in the model room in St Paul on Thursday, June 19, 2025. (Bennett Moger / Pioneer Press)
No, the 187 units in downtown St. Paul’s newest residential destination — a former office building converted into luxury housing — aren’t exactly cheap, but panache is the point. The 1980s theme is hard to miss in the names of about 40 different room layouts, ranging in sizes up to “The Diana,” a 2,100-square-foot, two-bedroom, three-bath penthouse. With gorgeous skyline views fit for a princess, it leases for $5,305.
The latest era for the 41-year-old Landmark Tower officially began last month with a grand opening of sorts. Following a $97 million conversion, it reopened its doors as a 187-unit luxury apartment building on the first 18 levels.
As of June 1, about 40 households had signed leases for apartments ranging in size from 613-square-foot one-bedrooms to 2,100-square-foot penthouses. The average size is 974 square feet, according to a spokesperson for developer Sherman Associates. Rents range from about $1,400 to $5,300 per month.
A view from the rooftop deck at Landmark Tower in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, June 19, 2025. (Bennett Moger / Pioneer Press)
National Register of Historic Places
Not every student of history would consider construction dating to the early 1980s as commemorable, but landing Landmark Tower on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022 was a key step toward ushering the former office building into its latest incarnation.
For the developer, saving the structure from the fate of some nearby beleaguered downtown properties — some of which have been foreclosed upon — required no small amount of public investment, including a $21 million city-driven tax incentive, among a wide variety of financing.
“These are not easy to get done,” said company principal George Sherman, during last month’s grand opening. With regard to office-to-residential conversions and the revival of historic properties, “not all of them are going to work out. The ones that can work out, we should lean into and make happen, because it’s critical for our downtowns.”
The lounge on the sixth floor of Landmark Tower in St. Paul on Thursday, June 19, 2025. (Bennett Moger / Pioneer Press)
Together with the reinvention of a nearby Ecolab tower into luxury residences dubbed The Stella, and commercial momentum in the Osborn 370 office building and the Hamm’s Building, some see the two blocks of St. Peter and Wabasha Street nearest Rice Park as bright spots.
“This is going to lead the way for more projects in this neighborhood,” said Chang Suh, chief executive officer of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, one of the building’s many financial backers, during the mid-May opening celebration. “It’s going to bring more homes, more retail, more shopping. It’s just going to bring more promise.”
From office to residential
Shortly after opening in 1984, the Amhoist Tower in downtown St. Paul — a 25-story office and condominium building — attracted a handful of judicial offices. And with them, they drew the first women to sit on the newly created Minnesota Court of Appeals: Judge Harriet Lansing, who had served as St. Paul’s first female city attorney in the 1970s, and Judge Susanne Sedgwick, who died of cancer in 1988.
The American Hoist and Derrick Co., a heavy equipment manufacturer, relocated its headquarters to Denver within a few years, and the structure at 345 St. Peter St. eventually came to be known as Landmark Tower.
The tower’s commercial and residential histories have often been somewhat at odds, with the building’s first 18 floors fully leased by offices by the late 1980s, even as the top seven floors struggled to find condo buyers.
By 2022, that story had flipped, when only some 10% of the commercial spaces were occupied.
In came Sherman Associates, a Minneapolis-based developer eager to see the building reinvented as a purely residential destination. That effort would require $97 million from a range of financing sources, including no shortage of public backing. State and federal historic tax credits, $21 million in city-driven tax incentives known as tax increment financing, or TIF, and support from a public pension fund — the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust — all proved to be instrumental.
The kitchen and living area of a unit at Landmark Tower in St. Paul on Thursday, June 19, 2025. (Bennett Moger / Pioneer Press)
Tax credit to aid conversion
Not every developer will be so lucky as to land so many backers, and not every downtown building may be spared from demolition.
A growing number of downtown officials have acknowledged that some vacant properties may eventually have to come down.
With those fears in mind, municipal leaders, housing advocates, labor unions, historic preservationists and others have called for lawmakers to approve a six-year tax credit that would help developers convert more underused buildings into residences or other uses. The “Credit for the Conversion of Underutilized Buildings,” or “CUB” credit, would defray 30% of qualified conversion costs, provided that 75% of the building’s interior and exterior are preserved. The bill has yet to be approved.
Landmark Tower “relied really heavily on TIF,” said Erin Hanafin Berg, director of the Rethos Policy Institute, which promotes best practices around historic preservation. “That’s borrowing from our own tax base. … If there’s ever a time for more proactive action, it’s now.”
The fitness studio and group fitness room on the sixth floor of the Landmark Tower Apartments in St Paul on Thursday, June 19th, 2025. (Bennett Moger / Pioneer Press)
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