Amid snow and ice, two large cranes are visible in St. Paul’s Midway as Dr. Bill McGuire’s long-planned development takes shape.

McGuire, lead investor in the Minnesota United FC professional soccer team, has wanted to increase economic activity in the neighborhood that’s adjacent to Allianz Field, which was built near I-94. “There are 20 local families who are investors in Minnesota United and who shared in building Allianz Field and support the club on an ongoing basis,” McGuire said.

Four buildings in United Village are now being constructed by Golden Valley-based Mortenson. McGuire, in a TCB interview, said he’s spending about $170 million to build two restaurants, an office building, and a hotel near the busy intersection of Snelling and University avenues.

“This area is important to people,” McGuire said. “You want to create excitement and aspiration, and for people to feel proud of where they are.” He believes the redevelopment project will generate those feelings.

McGuire, who participated in numerous community meetings over several years, said his development will serve the neighborhood and bring many visitors to the Midway area of St. Paul.

He anticipates the two restaurants will open by June. One will be the Midway Diner, which McGuire said will be a classic American diner. The other restaurant will be called Picco, which will be a pizza place.

“They’re meant to be very cool buildings, fun buildings, and environments for people to enjoy a meal,” McGuire said.

McGuire formed an LLC, Snelling-Midway Redevelopment (SMR), that is the business entity that is developing the four buildings and will own them.

Local people will operate the two restaurants. “There are no chains,” he said. “We’ve got people on board,” but he didn’t name them at this stage of the building process.

On the food front, McGuire also plans to have a bakery on the first floor of the office building that’s set to open by late summer of this year. The steel structure for the office building is in place, and construction workers will soon be putting up walls.

The fourth piece of McGuire’s development is a 158-unit boutique hotel that will be called the Midway Hotel, which is scheduled to open in early 2027.

Art works and terraces

Before embarking on the four-building project, McGuire developed park spaces in the 35-acre United Village. In addition, the McGuire Family Foundation commissioned a Scottish artist to create a gigantic loon sculpture. It was installed in 2024 in the southeast corner of the Snelling and University intersection.

McGuire loves the visual arts and is incorporating distinctive art throughout his redevelopment project.

“I think art’s important to our lives,” said McGuire, a former CEO of UnitedHealth Group. “We learn things from art, and different people interpret it in different ways.”

Ta-coumba Aiken, a St. Paul-based artist, will have a large mural in the development. “He’s going to have a great piece that stretches 80 or 100 feet along the entire wall of the restaurants,” McGuire said.

At the hotel, he added, just off the back terrace will be a sculpture created by a “very important Costa Rican artist.”

A muralist from New York is working on four pieces of art that will be placed outside of Allianz Field. A Duluth artist is working on a 40-foot mural that’s destined for the Midway Diner.

“Every area will have art,” McGuire said. “It includes local artists as well as international artists because the idea is to just expose people to things that are interesting.”

The development includes multiple terraces, so office workers, hotel guests, and restaurant patrons have places to sit outside during warm weather months.

Attracting hotel guests

The Midway Hotel will have an affiliation with a major hotel group, but McGuire declined to name it. He predicts that the hotel will be popular with a variety of constituencies.

“The big thing is what it offers,” McGuire said. “It fronts on to a lot of green space. Art will be all around it. It’s going to have a great terrace for people to sit on and enjoy. It’s a place where you’d want to go stay.”

McGuire emphasized that the Midway area is a great location for a hotel. “You’re halfway between the two Twin Cities’ downtowns, right off a major freeway, and not too far from the airport,” he said. “You’ve got all kinds of transportation options to get there.”

Hamline University is less than a mile from McGuire’s United Village on Snelling Avenue. “We’ve got multiple colleges and universities [nearby],” McGuire said. “We’ve got Macalester. You’ve got St. Kate’s down from Macalester. You’ve got St. Thomas,” he said. “Just add up all of the events that those colleges have.”

In addition, the hotel will be about five miles from the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus.

“You’re literally 30 yards away from the light rail station,” McGuire said.

He acknowledges the drop off in light rail ridership following the pandemic. In recent years, McGuire said, “we weren’t doing enough to address the problems that had emerged across the country on light rail.”

In St. Paul, he said, “I think of late there have been definite improvements and efforts in a number of ways. There are things that can still be done, and we’ll be pushing those.”

Overall, he said, he expects light rail ridership to increase and safety concerns to decrease. “I don’t think security issues are going to be a major problem,” McGuire said. “Just bringing people to an area makes the area more safe.”

Adding office space

McGuire will be opening a new office building in the middle of this year—more than six years after the pandemic hit.

The four-level office building will consist of about 85,000 square feet of space, and underground parking will be available.

The new office space will be going on the market as many Minnesota office workers are expected by their employers to be in the office at least three or four days a week.

McGuire views the centrality of the location to be a key asset for the office building. Like the hotel location, he said, “it’s an absolutely extraordinary area in terms of transportation.”

In some ways, he said, the development that’s coming to life in the Snelling-University neighborhood fits the definition that some planners and academics call the “15-minute city.” McGuire said that office workers will be able to easily walk to housing, restaurants, and other places they would frequent on a daily basis.

In addition, he said, more employers are recognizing the value of in-office work, and young employees want to learn from older peers.

“I personally think that people need to work in offices,” McGuire said. “That’s how people grow. You get around people. You get to talk to people. It’s very different than being at home or on Zoom.”

He also notes that office workers can simply walk to soccer games at Allianz Field. “You’re right next to an architecturally brilliant and beautiful stadium,” McGuire said. “This is all about creating great vitality in an area for people.”