Two commercial corners of downtown St. Paul folded Thursday, casting grim shadows on once-promising business corridors hard hit by the pandemic, online shopping and the advent of remote work.

Workers at the downtown St. Paul Lunds & Byerlys store said their final goodbyes to customers on Thursday as a 50% off sale ushered in the grocery’s permanent closure after more than a decade of operation on 10th Street. The store, which opened in 2014, employed at least 30 workers; those with at least five years of employment history with the company were offered placement in other Lunds & Byerlys locations.

News of its closure came as a surprise to Gareth Horvath, a former laboratory director with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, who had driven downtown from River Falls, Wis. to conduct genealogical research nearby. Before his retirement two years ago, he enjoyed lunch at the Lunds deli buffet about twice a week, he said.

“I just heard on the news that state employees are coming back (in person) half time,” said Horvath, recalling how his lab unit showed up downtown daily, even as other state employees went fully remote. “That might have helped. It might have.”

On Thursday afternoon, after serving up his last slice of pizza at the Alliance Bank Center, Pino Lipari, Jr. promised to reopen Pino’s Pizzeria in a different corner of downtown St. Paul within a matter of weeks, continuing the skyway lunch counter tradition his father and namesake launched 37 years ago.

Signs explain the hours at the Lunds & Byerlys grocery store in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, March 27, 2025. A 50% off sale ushered in the grocery’s permanent closure Thursday after more than a decade of operation on 10th Street. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“A small hiatus,” said Lipari, Jr., pinching his thumb and pointer finger close together as he predicted better days ahead within the Town Square food court on Cedar Street. “In with the new.”

The few remaining skyway vendors at the Alliance Bank Center began closing shop forever on Thursday, days after receiving notice to vacate because property owner Madison Equities had stopped paying for utilities, security and maintenance.

Next steps, new stops?

Among the recent departures were Paul A. Hartquist Jewelers and B’s Barbershop, both of whom could measure their time downtown in decades. Both plan to reopen shortly within the Town Square complex. A sign in the Skyway Mart convenience store advertised a May 1 reopening within Town Square, which consists of three buildings around 445 Minnesota St. and 444 Cedar St.

Hartquist on Thursday predicted he would be back in business within a week, and said he was optimistic that a greater concentration of skyway vendors within fewer downtown locations would benefit customers and vendors alike.

“Hopefully the skyway revives a little bit,” Hartquist said.

Meeting as the St. Paul Housing and Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council authorized spending up to $70,000 on relocation assistance grants for the 14 Alliance Bank Center tenants who were still on site as of March 1. Each grant would measure no more than $5,000.

Officials with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, which is relocating 60 attorneys, paralegals and office workers from two floors of the Alliance Bank Center, have estimated that the full cost of finding a new space could total $500,000 after storage, build-out, deposit and moving costs.

Construction barricades surround the downtown St. Paul Lunds-Byeryls on Friday, Mar. 7, 2025. The upscale grocer announced that its 10th and Robert St. store will close on Wednesday, March 26th. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Like the state, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has also ordered city government office workers back to work in person on a hybrid schedule. They returned at least twice a week as of last fall and will be expected downtown three times per week as of April 1.

The St. Paul Downtown Alliance, a partnership between City Hall and major downtown employers, recently launched the Downtown Development Corporation, a nonprofit effort to connect developers and property owners to new capital and position old office buildings for their second life, possibly as residential towers.

Office-to-residential tax credits

Meanwhile, on Thursday morning state Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, presented a bill to the Senate Taxes Committee to create the Catalyzing Underutilized Buildings tax credit, which will offer financial incentive for developers to pursue office-to-residential conversions.

While some former tenants have expressed their doubts, a Gensler real estate report commissioned by the Downtown Alliance found that the Alliance Bank Center — as well as nine other commercial structures out of 20 downtown St. Paul buildings surveyed — would be a strong candidate for residential conversion.

Still, members of the city council and other downtown stakeholders have made no secret that some outdated office buildings will not easily lend themselves to preservation and redevelopment, and may have to be torn down.

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