The Saint Paul Condo Blog

Thanks again to Dan for sparking another blog post for me!

I thought I would recap the status of the failed projects that Downtown has seen in recent years.  Some of them you'll know, others were really under the radar.  I will try and order these by failure date, but there's no guarantee that it's accurate.

Sibley House
Sibley House was to be a new construction high-rise tower at the corner of 4th and Sibley.  For those of you familiar with the area, it's the tot-playground - or as my daughter calls it, "the train park".  This project singlehandedly sparked the residents of downtown to get the park out of the hands of the HRA (Saint Paul Housing & Redevelopment Authority) and permanently over to Parks and Rec.  A battle that wasn't won until recently.  The development died in late 2001, early 2002.  The developer (GMT Corporation, the original developer behind River Park Lofts) cited higher steel costs and lack of financing for high-rise construction in the post 9/11 era.  What ever the reason, it would have been an unique building!

Lower Town Depot
Lower Town Depot is the abandoned building located on the Bruce Ventos Nature Trail, just east of Downtown.  The concept was pretty cool, a self sustaining condominium just steps from beautiful trails.  Not really sure what knocked off this project, but I heard rumors there was infighting between the development partners.  The location has it's pluses and minuses.  The plus was obviously the nature trail, the minus was it's in the middle of a sea of train tracks and near a waste water treatment facility.  If this building wasn't all by itself, this project may have seen more interest.  It's hard to be self sustaining, when every time you need something you have to hop in a car.

Island Station
If there were one project that really had a unique product to pitch, this was it.  Even the marketing was very clever!  Who wouldn't want to live in a converted power plant on the river???  The building was going to be pretty upscale, which netted a lot of big name buyers - at first.  The project was hugely expensive, converting an old power plant into condos was not an easy task.  Which is why more condos in this development were to be located in two new construction buildings on the property.  Other unique aspects to the development was the private marina.  If I remember correctly each boat slip was being offered at $100,000!  I think a couple of things that canned this project were an inexperienced developer (banks were very hesitant), and the fact that the property required a new levee surrounding it to get floor certification.  Prior to being marketed it was a community for squatters.  Lots of them, some with boats!  It looks as f the squatters haver returned, minus the boats this time.

West Side Flats
I would guess at some point in the future, West Side Flats will be risen from the dead.  This project flopped because of design.  The design was great, just too tall.  It took many months to come to an agreement with the city with regards to how tall a building could be on the "wrong side" of the river.  Once everyone came to terms with that, they hit the wall with timing.  Writing was on the wall with the market conditions and they made the right decision to not build.

Minnesota Building
The Minnesota Building was in the early stages when it was canned.  They went as far to draft up plans, but never began marketing the building.  I still suspect that the building will show up as rentals down the road.  One main reason this project was nixed before it started - parking!  The ramp that is attached is not owned by the building, and with what they needed to get on a price per square foot basis, they would have to have parking with it, owned.

Commerce Building
The Commerce Building was pretty far along when the decision was made to convert to apartments instead.  Again, parking was an issue.  When the boom market returns, look for this building to be converted to condos.  The Apartments are having their grand opening in August, I believe.

Bonnie Jean Flats
Ahh, Bonnie Jean Flats, I've got some fond memories there (that was typed with a sarcastic tone)!  We were called in, as a last ditch effort to sell the 13 units of this building.  The developer (well, one of the partners at least) was trying to sell these for a full year before he called us in.  Too little, too late.  As the development partnership crumbled, the project was put on ice while the partnership was dissolved.   The building now is rental with a option to purchase.  The risk with this is your are buying a single unit in a rental building.  Unless of course everyone exercised their option.  Also, financing would be very difficult, if not impossible with this setup.

The Bridges of Saint Paul
The Bridges was such an amazing development to watch!  From the beginning, the developer had his vision in mind, and no one was going to tell him differently (sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad).  The saga was almost movie worthy.  From neighborhood associations being taken over from "concerned citizens" or workers of the development, to the show downs in the press between the City and the developer.  I've never in my life seen so many full color, full page ads for a development EVER!  At one point, it almost looked like the developer was going to run for office just to get the project through!  What finally killed the deal was the zoning request denial.  At issue was the scale of the project and being located on the "wrong side" of the river (sound familiar?).

Farmers Market Flats
Sometimes you just can't win!  We represented this development at the beginning of the project, sold enough to start construction, but more delays started to pop up.  After we decided it was best we part ways, the development stalled.  The builder stopped construction, claiming the developer didn't have the funds to pay him, or sustain the project.  The developer, with the City's permission, fired the builder and hired a new one.  That's when the lawsuits started - First the builder sued the developer and the City for breech of contract (aka, being fired).  Then the whopper of a lawsuit - The City sued the builder for fraud!  Expect the hole in the ground at 5th and Wall to be there for quite some time.  In my opinion, these lawsuits will drag on for years.  :(

The Penfield
If the Penfield has started 6 months to a year earlier, we would be selling units in this project at huge discounts.  That would still be better than having a near abandoned sales center surrounded by dead grass.  The Penfield really went through a slow and agonizing death.  The rumors were flying for at least 9 months!  There were talks about adding a grocery story and a hotel to help reduce the number of condos in the project, but it wasn't enough to save it from the market downturn.  The developer is supposedly resubmitting a new plan to the city - this one with NO condos.  I do hope something can get built on the site, but I have a feeling it won't be nearly as grand as the condo version.