Galtier Plaza - History

History

At that time the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation, a non-profit coordinator of development in St. Paul's historic warehouse district, had sought to fill Block 40 for some three years. The site on Mears Park just east of the downtown business district represented the keystone in Lowertown's revitalization, and Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation's executive director Weiming Lu had patiently wooed developers with the concept of a mixed-use development and one eager tenant, the downtown YMCA, in hand. "We wanted to carve something out of a concrete jungle to get people to come back to the city," says Lu.

Efforts to put together a project reusing existing properties on the block had fallen through, as had a modest proposal for housing and service retail by the Carley Capital Group of Madison, Wisconsin. The city had already secured an Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) from the federal government for the Carley development, and called for new developers with a three month deadline looming. Boisclair and Omni Venture, Ltd. the developers of Minneapolis' International Market Square, responded with a proposal of considerably more ambition. With the UDAG in hand, potential for tax-exempt financing, and a loan from Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation, Robert Boisclair took on the development while Riverplace was barely underway.

Miller Hanson Westerbeck Bell's selection as architects for the project was almost a foregone conclusion. Not only had they done massing studies of Block 40 for the Lowertown Coproration to help entice developers, bu they had a history of designing housing for Boisclair which included Lakepoint Tower and the Falls and Pinnacle at Riverplace.

Galtier Plaza is named after Father Lucien Galtier, a Roman Catholic priest who has historical involvement with the founding of the city of St. Paul.