Last week I attended an excellent Summit about downtown Saint Paul. We learned about every new project and about projects that have been recently completed. it got me to thinking about how in the early 2000’s rental type apartments were converted into condos and warehouses and other buildings were converted into condos and a whole new neighborhood of mostly condos was built between E. 8th and E. tenth at Temperance and Wacouta streets.
When the housing market crashed in 2008 condos were hard to sell but they did sell and the demand for rental properties increased. New buildings with rentals units have been completed and few more are on the way. We now have luxury apartments at the Penfield and in the pioneer building and apartments where the hole in the ground on 5th street used to be. We have 8000 people living downtown now up from 4000 in 2005. I wonder if in the next ten years we see more condo conversions? Will there be enough housing downtown or too much and will it be the right type of housing?
There is still a lot of vacant retail and office space downtown and many of us miss the downtown Dayton’s store. It would be nice to see more retail and more businesses in some of those vacant skyways.
Available housing and jobs in the area will determine who lives downtown and who does not. Will the demand for apartments go up or down? will some of the apartments eventually be converted to condos? With the green line and the new ballpark and so many other wonderful things going on downtown I can’t help but think that demand for housing will remain strong. I do love our downtown and enjoy living so close. There is always something going on and there is a lot of variety with art and museums, music and sports. I am a fan of downtown St. Paul and always have been.
