By his take, Ned Rupp practically grew up at 340 Cedar St., a 13-story downtown St. Paul high rise better known these days as the St. Paul Athletic Club. The former home of the Hotel 340, the College of St. Scholastica and Life Time Fitness opened in 1917 with a swimming pool on the eighth floor, which Rupp called an “engineering marvel” of its day — the highest-situated swimming pool in Minnesota at the time.

Rupp, son of building owner John Rupp, is now a broker with the Minneapolis-based commercial real estate company SVN NorthCo, which auctioned the now-vacant property from Sept. 9 to Sept. 11. The auction closed last week without a sale.

“We didn’t hit the reserve at auction,” said Ned Rupp, who declined to identify what the minimum selling price would have been. “We’re talking to several potential buyers and we hope to have a resolution soon. There has been interest since the end of the auction.”

Ned Rupp did not elaborate on how many buyers came to bid or whether they’re the same buyers in talks now.

His affection for the property is shared by others, but the post-pandemic era of remote work has been tough on downtown St. Paul, with the departure of state government employees — among other units of public and private-sector workers — taking an especially hard toll.

“I kind of grew up in the building, worked there for four years in the hotel and the University Club back in 2012 to 2016,” said Ned Rupp, who is hopeful 340 Cedar St. finds a responsible buyer.

John Rupp, who put the property on the market about five years ago, had hoped to sell the building to the city of St. Paul or Ramsey county for use as a YMCA-like community center, but found no takers. Some county officials have said the amount of maintenance required gave them pause, while some consultants for historic properties have said the site is in relatively good shape for a century-old building.

The St. Paul Athletic Club structure isn’t the only property in downtown St. Paul that has had a tough go of it. Madison Equities has put more than 1.6 million square feet of commercial real estate on the market en masse, most of it downtown office buildings, as well as the troubled Lowry Apartments building at 4th and Wabasha Street, which was recently acquired by its own mortgage lender.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reported this week that two downtown Minneapolis office towers — the Forum buildings — sold this month for $6.5 million, or 91% lower than the property’s last sale, which was $73.7 million in 2019.

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