In downtown St. Paul, Flaherty and Collins proposes 300 market-rate apartments at Green Line’s Central Station

In downtown St. Paul, an Indiana-based developer is proposing installing 300 units of market-rate housing in two new buildings to be erected on either side of the Green Line’s Central Station light rail stop off Fifth and Cedar Street.

The St. Paul City Council appears poised next week to approve tentative developer status for Flaherty and Collins, which was the sole company to respond to a joint request for proposals issued last year by the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority and the Metropolitan Council, a fellow land owner.

Ryan Cronk, a vice president with Flaherty and Collins, said the company has expressed interest in developing the vacant lots around the Green Line since 2015, and the proposed project could add up to a $130 million real estate investment.

“The plans are just that — they are very conceptual,” said Cronk, addressing the city council during Wednesday’s HRA meeting. “How does this interact with the streetscape? How does this interact with the train station?”

He said the project includes 300 market-rate studio as well as one, two and three-level apartments in a 20-story tower to be built on the north side of the Green Line station and a smaller six-story building that would be added along the station’s south side. It also includes 10,000 square feet of commercial space at the ground level, by Fifth and Minnesota streets, and a skyway connection joining the two buildings above the light rail tracks.

City Council President Rebecca Noecker, who represents downtown, said the long-awaited development could by the lynchpin that helps revive real estate energy in a market struggling to draw or retain office tenants.

“It is hard to overstate how exciting this proposal is,” said Noecker, addressing Cronk and her fellow council members during the HRA meeting.

“We are overdue. This site is the lynchpin of downtown. There is so much potential,” she added, while emphasizing that the plans could yet be improved. “This is just a start. I don’t think we’re there yet. I’m going to be pushing you.”

Several council members have expressed interest in adding affordable units to the project. Nicolle Newton, director of the city’s Department of Planning and Economic Development, said there’s time to negotiate those and other considerations before a project agreement is finalized with the developer by the end of 2026.

On Feb. 19, “we’ll just be saying, ‘yes, we’re going to be holding hands with this team,’ and we’ll be working toward what a project would look like,” Newton said. “No less exciting, just an earlier step. It’s still a huge deal.”

The Metropolitan Council, a joint land owner with the city HRA, is expected to approve tentative developer status for Flaherty and Collins on March 12. The company continues to own 2700 University, a six-story, mixed-income building, which it opened along the Green Line’s Westgate Station in 2016.

“It seems that a lot of the commissioners share some excitement about this,” said Council Member Cheniqua Johnson, the newly-installed chair of the St. Paul HRA.