The broker that put the more-than-century-old Lowry Apartments on the market this week said Thursday that two other Madison Equities properties — the Degree of Honor Building on Cedar Street and Seventh Place Apartments — will not be listed for sale, at least not in the immediate future.

All three buildings are largely residential, multi-family apartment structures.

“Right now the decision is not to market those,” said Abe Roberts, a senior vice president with Marcus and Millichap, the Minneapolis firm acting as the broker for the former Lowry hotel at Fourth and Wabasha.

Madison Equities, believed to be the largest property owner in downtown St. Paul, has advertised the majority of its downtown holdings following the death in January of longtime company principal Jim Crockarell. His widow, Rosemary Kortgard, has declined public comment on the decision.

Constructed in 1905, the 11-story Lowry Apartments was listed for sale separately this week from 10 Madison Equities commercial properties that went on the market a week ago.

Those commercial properties, which include six downtown office buildings, two parking ramps, the Handsome Hog restaurant on Selby Avenue and the vacant lot next to it, have been bundled together for sale to a single buyer, if one comes forward. CBRE is representing Madison Equities’ commercial portfolio.

“This is a separate offering,” Roberts said of the Lowry sale. “Most likely, there will be a different buyer for the multifamily properties than the office portfolio, hence why they are listed separately. I would expect a similar sales timeline for the office as the multifamily.”

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By MARK SHERMAN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that authorities do not have to provide a quick hearing when they seize cars and other property used in drug crimes, even when the property belongs to so-called innocent owners.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices rejected the claims of two Alabama women who had to wait more than a year for their cars to be returned. Police had stopped the cars when they were being driven by other people and, after finding drugs, seized the vehicles.

Civil forfeiture allows authorities to take someone’s property, without having to prove that it has been used for illicit purposes. Critics of the practice describe it as “legalized theft.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the conservative majority that a civil forfeiture hearing to determine whether an owner will lose the property permanently must be timely. But he said the Constitution does not also require a separate hearing about whether police may keep cars or other property in the meantime.

In a dissent for the liberal members of the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that civil forfeiture is “vulnerable to abuse” because police departments often have a financial incentive to keep the property.

“In short, law enforcement can seize cars, hold them indefinitely, and then rely on an owner’s lack of resources to forfeit those cars to fund agency budgets, all without any initial check by a judge as to whether there is a basis to hold the car in the first place,” Sotomayor wrote.

The women, Halima Culley and Lena Sutton, filed federal lawsuits arguing they were entitled to a prompt court hearing that would have resulted in the cars being returned to them much sooner. There was no suggestion that either woman was involved in or knew anything about the illegal activity.

Sutton had loaned her car to a friend. Police in Leesburg, Alabama seized it when they arrested him for trafficking methamphetamine.

Sutton ended up without her car for 14 months, during which she couldn’t find work, stay current with bills or keep her mental-health appointments, her lawyers wrote in court papers.

Culley had bought a car for her son to use at college. Police in Satsuma, Alabama stopped the car and found marijuana and a loaded hangun. They charged the son with marijuana possession and kept the car.

The Supreme Court decision means months or years of delay for people whose property is taken, said Kirby Thomas West, co-director of the National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse at the libertarian Institute for Justice.

“Meanwhile owners of seized vehicles will scramble to find a way to get to work, take their kids to school, run errands, and complete other essential life tasks,” West said in an email.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was part of Thursday’s majority, but in an opinion also joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch said larger questions about the use of civil forfeiture remain unresolved.

Noting that civil forfeiture has become a “booming business,” Gorsuch wrote the court should use a future case to assess whether the modern practice of civil forfeiture is in line with constitutional guarantees that property may not be taken “without due process of law.”

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — The World Video Game Hall of Fame inducted its 10th class of honorees Thursday, recognizing Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, SimCity and Ultima for their impacts on the video game industry and popular culture.

The inductees debuted across decades, advancing technologies along the way and expanding not only the number of players, but the ages and interests of those at the controls, Hall of Fame authorities said in revealing the winners. The Hall of Fame recognizes electronic games of all types — arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile.

The Class of 2024 was selected by experts from among a field of 12 finalists that also included Elite, Guitar Hero, Metroid, Neopets, Tokimeki Memorial, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and You Don’t Know Jack.

The honor for Atari’s Asteroids comes 45 years after its 1979 debut in arcades, where it was Atari’s bestselling coin-operated game. The game’s glowing space-themed graphics and sound effects made their way from more than 70,000 arcade units into millions of living rooms when a home version of Asteroids was made available on the Atari 2600.

“Through endless variants and remakes across dozens of arcade, home, handheld, and mobile platforms, Asteroids made a simple, yet challenging game about blasting rocks into one of the most widely played and influential video games of all time,” said Jeremy Saucier, assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games at The Strong museum, where the World Video Game Hall of Fame is located.

The next inductee to debut was Ultima, not necessarily a household name but a force in the development of the computer role-playing genre, digital preservation director Andrew Borman said in the news release. Designed by Richard Garriott and released in 1981, Utima: The First Age of Darkness inspired eight sequels and is credited with inspiring later role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

The urban design-inspired SimCity was released by Maxis in 1989 and found an audience among adults as well as children who were challenged to build their own city and respond to problems. Among the sequels and offshoots it inspired was 2016 World Video Game Hall of Fame inductee The Sims.

“At a time when many people thought of video games in terms of arcade shooters or console platformers, SimCity appealed to players who wanted intellectually stimulating fun on their newly bought personal computers,” Aryol Prater, research specialist for Black play and culture, said.

The adventure game Myst sold more than 6 million copies, making it a best-selling computer game in the 1990s. The 1993 Broderbund release used early CD-ROM technology and allowed for a level of player immersion that until then had not been available in computer games, the Hall of Fame said.

“Few other games can match Myst’s ability to open imaginative worlds,” collections manager Kristy Hisert said. “It was a work of artistic genius that captured the imagination of an entire generation of computer game players, and its influence can be seen in many of today’s open-world games.”

The final honoree, Resident Evil’s “cheesy B-movie dialogue, engrossing gameplay, and chilling suspense” helped popularize the “survival horror” genre following its release by Capcom in 1996 and offered mature entertainment for older teenagers and adults, video game curator Lindsey Kurano said. Created by game director Shinji Mikami, it also inspired an action horror film series that as of 2022 had grossed more than $1.2 billion, according to the Hall of Fame.

Anyone can nominate a game to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Members of an international selection advisory committee submit their top three choices from the list of finalists. Fans also are invited to weigh in online. The public as a whole is treated as a single committee member.