Have St. Paul’s Stalled Urban Villages Resumed Building?
It’s been years since market conditions stalled out the completion of the Highland Bridge project and seemed to doom promised development near Allianz Field, but there are finally signs of new construction at both locales.
Highland Bridge
About six years ago, Minneapolis-based developer Ryan Cos. began work on the Highland Bridge mixed-use project, building residences, retail spaces, and offices across 122 acres where a Ford assembly plant shuttered in 2011. The gem of the development, in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood, is a long, curvaceous pond that collects storm water. “It has become an icon of that site,” says development manager Sean Ryan.
Highland Bridge is “probably one of the more unique sites that’s come on line in Minneapolis-St. Paul, if not the country, in a while,” Ryan says. But four years ago, construction came to a halt. While senior-living units and affordable housing, less reliant on private capital, could continue going up, a “perfect storm” put market-rate multifamily projects on pause.
Construction costs jumped post-Covid. Inflation drove up interest rates and tightened spending. St. Paul rent control, activated in 2022, capped yearly rent increases at 3% for most residential units—and dried up investment, Ryan says. “If construction [costs] are too high, we either need to raise rents or we need to buy the land for less—or we need to figure out some way to get the project back in line.”
At last, Highland Bridge pushed forward last summer. In June, Ryan Cos. broke ground on market-rate apartments, which the developer will also own, known as the Gateway Project.
St. Paul reined in rent control in May, exempting construction after 2004, but it’s a TIF package, Ryan says, that pushed construction forward.
How long until the development is complete? He estimates 10 years—depending, again, on market conditions.
About 35 acres await development. Further construction is slated to begin in early summer of market-rate apartments owned and operated by Seattle-based partner Weidner Apartment Homes. Atlanta-based partner Pulte Homes is set to finish building 167 row homes in late 2026 or early 2027.
Existing development, as of mid-March, included The Collection, a mixed-use complex owned by Weidner that opened in 2022 and includes market-rate units and a Lunds & Byerlys. A 60,000-square-foot medical office building, 255 units of affordable housing, and a senior living community are also complete.
United Village
A huge sculpture of Minnesota’s state bird adorns the southeast corner of the Snelling and University intersection in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood. The sculpture also serves as the gateway to United Village, a development planned by Dr. Bill McGuire, lead investor in the Minnesota United FC.
“We haven’t been able to move things along as fast as we wanted because of permitting delays.”
—Dr. Bill McGuire, lead investor in the Minnesota United FC
Allianz Field, home of the professional soccer team, opened in 2019, but it has taken several years for development to occur on the land adjacent to the stadium. (Mixed-use development now accompanies most stadium and arena construction in the U.S.)
“A myriad of circumstances have stood in the way,” McGuire says, citing the pandemic, property damage along University Avenue that occurred in response to George Floyd’s killing in 2020, and a slow city regulatory process. “We haven’t been able to move things along as fast as we wanted because of permitting delays,” McGuire says.
But 2026 is a year of progress for the construction of four buildings in United Village. McGuire is developing the area through an LLC he formed called Snelling-Midway Redevelopment (SMR), which is investing $170 million to build two restaurants, an office building, and a hotel. Golden Valley-based Mortenson is doing the construction.
The Midway Diner and Picco, a pizza place, are expected to open by June. An office building with a bakery on its first floor will open by late summer. McGuire hopes to attract a variety of clientele to a 158-unit boutique hotel that’s scheduled to welcome visitors by early 2027.
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He anticipates that the hotel will attract people visiting nearby private colleges, including Hamline, Macalester, and St. Thomas, as well as the University of Minnesota.
McGuire, who solicited neighborhood input on his development through numerous community meetings, is a big advocate for Midway’s central location between the downtowns of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He also views the Green Line light rail on University Avenue as a plus in connecting the area to the broader metro.
“You provide opportunities and people want to live there,” McGuire says. “They want to grow [businesses] there. They want to work there. They want to visit. Those are the kinds of things that create great neighborhoods.”
