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St. Paul News
Alex Haddon
Updated:

Troubled downtown light rail station could see $130 million development

A light rail station in the middle of a city
A tower connects the Green Line's Central Station to the skyway in downtown St. Paul.
Andrew Krueger | MPR News 2022

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The area around a troubled light rail station in downtown St. Paul could be getting a $130 million upgrade.

Central Station is located in the block surrounded by Fifth, Fourth, Cedar and Minnesota Streets. St. Paul officials have been trying to improve the area for years. It was the scene of a January shooting and a 2022 double-homicide. There are also vacant buildings nearby.  

The development proposal from Indianapolis-based firm Flaherty and Collins includes 300 apartments, 10,000 square feet of retail space and public plazas. 

The development would be built in two towers on both sides of the light rail line. They would be connected by a skyway. Currently, the 1.66 acre plot is mostly empty except for a small building connecting the rail station to the skyway. 

The St. Paul Housing and Redevelopment Authority will vote on whether to approve tentative developer status on Wednesday. That means that, if approved, the city intends to move forward with the project and won’t work with another developer on the site.

But there’s still a long way to go before the proposed development becomes a reality. The city has to determine where funding will come from. Ryan Cronk, the vice president of Flaherty & Collins Properties, said the plans are still “very conceptual.” 

“How does this interact with the streetscape? How does this interact with the train station?” he said at a Feb. 12 meeting of the HRA. “We’re excited to start the process of working with all the stakeholders in St. Paul, with the city to come up with a plan that we think will work for everybody.”

Flaherty and Collins was the only company to respond to a request for development proposals for the plot last year. This would be the second Green Line development the firm has built in St. Paul. The first was 2700 University, an apartment building on the border of Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

City Council member Rebecca Noecker joked during the Feb. 12 meeting that the last time St. Paul saw a development of this magnitude, she’d just received her driver’s license. 

“This site, I really believe, is the linchpin of downtown. There is so much potential for this to be so much more than it is today,” she said.

“I’m going to be pushing you,” Noecker said, emphasizing how much she wants the development to happen.