One of St. Paul’s oldest office towers — the 13-story St. Paul Athletic Club on Cedar Street — will go to online auction next week, with starting bids advertised at $750,000.

The neoclassical structure, with a multi-level gymnasium, pool and ballroom, was built in 1917 for $1 million and saved from demolition in 1995 by downtown developer John Rupp.

For 50 years, Rupp has specialized in acquiring and maintaining historic structures that once were among the most celebrated office buildings and mansions in St. Paul, as well as century-old structures elsewhere throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. Rupp’s specialties — Gilded Age-style restaurants and buildings — have put him front and center in two industries, hospitality and commercial real estate, that have faced special challenges since the start of the pandemic.

John Rupp is shown in a 2015 file photo. (Andy Rathbun / Pioneer Press)

Like his late peer, Madison Equities Principal Jim Crockarell, Rupp maintains a downtown-based property empire that hasn’t always had sufficient tenants and foot traffic to support it, especially in the era of remote work, online retail and sluggish restaurant sales.

Crockarell died in January, and his widow quickly placed at least 11 sizable Madison Equities properties on the market, several of them empty downtown office buildings she hopes to sell as a package.

As recently as 2019, Rupp and his company, Commonwealth Properties, were honored by Finance & Commerce business newspaper with a “Progress Minnesota” award for saving historic properties from possible demolition. But some of his properties have hit tough times. One downtown St. Paul building in particular — the St. Paul Athletic Club at 340 Cedar St. — has been on the market for five years and has no remaining tenants, despite having a pool, ballroom and other large common spaces designed more than a century ago.

The online auction runs Monday through Wednesday.

“That building’s a difficult puzzle to solve,” said Joe Spencer, president of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, a business coalition. “People have looked at it. It’s a beautiful building, there’s no question about that. But it’s a purpose-built building that I think is difficult to potentially repurpose.”

Building might need ‘a village’

Meghan Elliott, founder of the Minneapolis-based historic preservation consulting firm New History, said Rupp has taken pains to maintain 340 Cedar St., but the site does not sit on the National Register of Historic Places, though it would likely qualify. That would be a necessary step to line it up for state and national historic tax credits that, combined with other public and private support, could be key to reviving it.

The St. Paul Athletic Club in St. Paul, photographed on May 3, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Otherwise, she said, 340 Cedar St. is surrounded by a “half-dozen uncertainties,” including the city’s residential rent-control policy, which the mayor soon hopes to eliminate for housing built after 2004. In addition, the city and Metropolitan Council issued a request for proposals this year for the potential redevelopment of 1.66 acres of vacant land surrounding the downtown Central Station light-rail stop, which borders the athletic club building. Responses were due in late July.

“This is going to be one of those projects that takes a village, literally,” Elliott said. “When it comes to real estate and real estate development around historic building re-use, the more certainty you can bring to a project, the more you’ll find a buyer with good intentions. You know there are buyers out there who will buy it at a rock-bottom price and just sit on it. Eventually, it gets demolished, or sold to another developer at a rock-bottom price, and that’s not what downtown St. Paul needs right now.”

Rupp also holds a major stake in the 60-acre Villa Maria destination wedding venue in Frontenac, which is under financial pressure from a Wisconsin bank lender.

“I’m going to make no comment formally,” Rupp said Aug. 29. “I don’t want my business to be played out in the newspapers.”

Rupp’s more successful St. Paul holdings include the celebrated W.A. Frost restaurant and bar on Selby Avenue, the Commodore Bar & Restaurant on Western Avenue and the Davidson, an eight-unit hotel that opened in 2019 within the Davidson Mansion (a former College of Visual Arts building) on Summit Avenue. Commonwealth Properties wedding destinations include the University Club on Summit Avenue and the Stout’s Island Resort, which sits on an island in Red Cedar Lake in western Wisconsin.

John Rupp’s portfolio troubles

St. Paul Athletic Club, 340 Cedar St.: One of Rupp’s showcase holdings, the St. Paul Athletic Club has been for sale since at least the early days of the pandemic. Marketing materials note the possibility of “numerous potential sale, lease and partnership structures.” Built in 1917, the building was designed by the architecture firm Reed and Stem, known for their work on New York City’s Union Station and Seattle’s King Street Station. It has a marble lobby, grand ballroom and various banquet spaces, as well as a swimming pool. Previously home to Life Time Fitness, the Hotel 340 and the College of St. Scholastica, the 13-story building now is empty of lease-holders and scheduled for online auction next week, unless a buyer steps forward sooner.

The St. Paul Building, 6 W. Fifth St.: In May, the Minnesota Court of Appeals supported a Ramsey County District Court decision to add Rupp as a debtor in a judgment against Commonwealth Properties over a broken commercial lease at the historic St. Paul Building at Fifth and Wabasha streets. Rupp, who once owned the 1890s-era office building, sold it in 2018 to St. Paul Building LLC, while Commonwealth Properties maintained a lease there on two floors.

Rupp’s company fell behind on rent and was evicted in July 2020, according to court filings. A Ramsey County District Court judge later entered judgment against Commonwealth for $443,000 as part of a settlement agreement, but St. Paul Building LLC accused Rupp of failing to follow through with payment and had him added to the legal case as an individual debtor. Rupp has filed a further appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Villa Maria in Frontenac, Wis.: Commonwealth Properties also owns Villa Maria, formerly known as the Villa Maria Academy, which was constructed in the 1890s as a school for the Ursuline Sisters of the Central Province, a group of Catholic nuns. Purchased in 2018, the 60-acre former retreat center overlooks Lake Pepin, about an hour south of St. Paul, in Frontenac.

On July 29, lender Pillar Bank of Baldwin, Wis., was granted a $1.4 million default judgment against Rupp, Villa Maria Ventures, Winona Controls mechanical systems and two unnamed defendants.

Burbank-Livingston-Griggs House, 432 Summit Ave.: On June 28, a Cottage Grove-based heating, ventilation and air conditioning company — Guardian Mechanical Services Inc. — filed a claim against Commonwealth Properties for $1,298 in unpaid balances for HVAC work performed at 432 Summit Ave. in St. Paul, the James C. Burbank house. Also known as the Burbank-Livingston-Griggs House, the gray limestone mansion has its own entry in the Library of Congress and is thought to be the second-oldest structure still standing on Summit Avenue.

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