Peter Remes is the aesthetically idiosyncratic developer known for Twin Cities revivals like the Aria, the Broadway, Icehouse Plaza, and Vandalia Tower—as well as, recently, for his love of pickleball. First & First, his Northeast Minneapolis firm, founded in 2010, has focused on updating and repurposing historic metro sites for public use.

This summer, he opened Avalon, an event center in what used to be downtown St. Paul’s James J. Hill Center, a library he says had sat in vacant disrepair for years. (Its bookish appeal remains.)

A Remes purchase stirs intrigue, and he’s been stirring: In Minneapolis last year, he acquired the former Apple store in Uptown, then the Woman’s Club building in Loring Park two months ago. Late last year, he bought the 500,000-square-foot Prior Works complex in St. Paul. The Apple store has been shuttered since 2020, the Woman’s Club property was in decline, and Prior Works has about 70,000 square feet of vacant space, he says.

TCB caught up with Remes to learn his vision for the buildings, as well as to ask about his pickleball interest.

Also, how do his style-forward projects pencil out these days? He’s most interested in public spaces that elicit emotion, a greater imperative in the age of smartphones, he says, and as rising development costs encourage austerity. “I think we’ve forgotten or maybe have been dismissive of beauty and of aspirational experiences,” he says. In this environment, it’s about scrutiny of each line item. “The creativity exists in the constraints.”

What’s happening with the former Uptown Apple store?

It was the storied Uptown Bar & Cafe for decades, then it became an Apple store for 10 years, and then, in 2020, it joined an ellipsis of empty Uptown storefronts.

After buying the building at 3018 Hennepin Avenue in March 2025 for $1.1 million, Remes envisioned a 2026 opening. But no tenant has worked out.

It’s a peerless space, he says: “The building is built to Apple standards, which are—like, gosh, what’s the word? Just the most unbelievable engineering and construction methodology in the world.”

A retail tenant isn’t likely. “I think retail is a tough nut to crack.” He points to the oft-cited reasons: competition from e-commerce; bike lanes supplanting Hennepin Avenue parking last year; Covid-19, the 2020 uprisings, and the fatal 2021 shooting by law enforcement of Winston Boogie Smith—all seeming to further erode Uptown-going habits. Area business owners also have complained about homelessness and drug use on the streets, plus the traffic-dampening effect of Operation Metro Surge.

Still, he’s betting on the former Apple building’s “iconic nature,” noting he saw many shows there by The Replacements.

As the Uptown Bar & Cafe, it symbolized gritty cool for decades, then, as an Apple store, represented the area’s corporate evolution. Apple closed in 2020, part of a four-year exodus of national retailers that included Columbia Sportswear, MAC, and Victoria’s Secret.

Residents and business owners have organized to change public perception of the area. Recently inside the former Chino Latino restaurant, empty since 2020 in the heart of Uptown (at Lake and Hennepin), Remes thought, “Beautiful space—amazing, large—but how do you find somebody that wants to step in?”

He wasn’t sure what 3018 would become. “It’s not obvious in terms of, ‘OK, this needs to be this type of use.’”

He’d love an arts-related concept. The building, of about 10,000 square feet, seems “perfect” for a gallery. A restaurant is possible, but those economics are discouraging.

Two concepts have fizzled. He was most excited for a “leadership academy” that would have trained young people at no cost, but that idea foundered on obstacles related to launching a school, he says. The other idea would have resembled a cybercafe with tech for podcasting, music producing, and more—but he says funding didn’t materialize.

He’s hopeful the Seven Points multifamily housing project across the street, by Doran Companies, stokes further interest. Entrepreneur Angie Lee is helping already; he describes her Moona Moono cafe and general store, which opened last year at the south end of the block, as “always buzzy.”

“The fundamentals are unchanged,” he says: “still a few blocks from the lake, a very prominent location. I think the North Loop has impacted Uptown in terms of a competitive landscape, has pulled a lot of social activities. … But I think there’s room for both.”

The Woman’s Club building in Loring Park

The Woman’s Club, in operation since 1907, assists local charitable organizations—for example, recently collecting backpacks and other supplies for Minneapolis-based People Serving People, president Margaret Leibfried says.

The group has long operated out of a roughly 65,000-square-foot building in Loring Park, although the high costs of maintaining it and hosting events caused the organization to close for two months, and Leibfried says losing state and federal funding compounded the group’s financial struggle. It shed leadership and members, says Leibfried, who became president-elect. “I knew that we needed to sell the building.”

Remes bought the property in early August for $1.3 million. He wanted the Woman’s Club to remain a tenant, now in a smaller portion of the building. “We are undertaking some work to bring the building into the 21st century,” he says.

That includes activating the 650-seat auditorium on the main level, he says: “There’s an opportunity there to reprogram that and bring it back to life and contribute to the cultural landscape of the Twin Cities.” The vision for the rest of the space is an event venue, like Avalon, rebranded separately from the Woman’s Club.

“We look forward to building this partnership with Peter … to contributing to the vitality of Loring Park,” Leibfried says, noting a kick-off fundraising event for the Woman’s Club will take place Nov. 12.

Prior Works in St. Paul’s Midway

First & First teamed up with Chicago-based real estate firm R2 Companies to purchase Prior Works in November 2025 for $12.3 million. The complex of buildings in the Midway spans half a million square feet, he says—“almost like a small city”—and is known for Can Can Wonderland and Black Stack Brewing.

“We are going through the entire building and making changes and doing some renovations and making a lot of aesthetic improvements,” he says, “installing original works of art and trying to create a uniquely beautiful environment over there that maybe didn’t exist before.”

The space has about 70,000 square feet of vacancies, he says, noting First & First is still touring prospective tenants.

Pickleball

Joining the pandemic-era pickleball trend, First & First converted a Northeast Minneapolis factory building into a pickleball facility called Lucky Shots, open since 2021. “We have 17 courts over there, and we can host events, parties, corporate team building—any kind of event that you want to do,” Remes says.

But is the pickleball trend waning?

Remes this past summer sold his recently opened Brooklyn Center pickleball facility, called Le Dome. “We were approached randomly by a group that wanted to buy it and convert it to a soccer use,” he says, noting he had not been looking to sell.

“I actually think [the pickleball trend] is still going up,” he offers, “not at the significant numbers that it was through Covid and after Covid, but I think it’s the industry stabilizing. There probably won’t be a lot more facilities that are going to be coming online,” barring a new one in Apple Valley—Picklehall, combining pickleball with a food hall.