A Grocery, a Park and 178 Apartments: Downtown St. Paul Is Filling In Like a Neighborhood

"A lot of people didn't know this is parkland," St. Paul Parks and Recreation Director Andy Rodriguez said last week. He was standing under the new wave-shaped pergola at Wabasha Park. The city has owned the plaza at Fifth and Wabasha since 1979. Over the years it has been called Osborn Plaza, Ecolab Plaza and Capital Centre Plaza. Most people walking past took it for the front steps of an office building.

The park's renovation is one of several downtown projects finishing this fall, and together they point the same way. What's opening downtown St. Paul this season serves people who live there and people who come in on a weekend: a full grocery, a public plaza, a tortilla counter, a used-furniture shop, a Friday-night bar. You can now spend a Saturday downtown running errands and finding things to do, without needing a game or a show to justify the trip.

The Grocery Gap Closed on September 24

Lunds & Byerlys closed its store at 115 E. 10th St. in March 2025. That left what the Pioneer Press called "an increasingly residential downtown" with no major grocery store. In early August, Aldi would only say the replacement was "expected to open by end of year." It opened Thursday, Sept. 24, in the same space next to the Penfield apartments. The city lists it as open daily, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Aldi isn't the only food stop downtown now. Galvan Foods and Tortilleria took over the corner storefront at 308 Prince St., which used to be the Black Dog Cafe. It runs there as an indoor farmers' market, small grocery and deli, and the family makes about 3,000 tortillas a day with organic flour or heirloom corn. The indoor market is open Tuesday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Around the corner at 290 5th St. E., the outdoor Saint Paul Farmers' Market still runs Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The market's 2026 page lists the indoor and outdoor markets operating at the same time.

That gives you three places to buy food within a few blocks of each other, and all three are open on weekends. Until last month, the full-size grocery was the missing piece.

The Block Between Fifth and Sixth

The Pioneer Press recently asked which block is downtown's "hippest, most happening." Its answer was Wabasha Street between Fifth and Sixth. Two projects on that block hit milestones in the same week. The Stella held its grand opening on the same Thursday the renovated plaza next door had its first test run.

The first is the Stella, at 386 Wabasha St. The building was an Ecolab office tower, and Ecolab moved out around 2018. A Chicago-based developer defaulted on an earlier conversion and left the building in receivership. Carl Kaeding and the Kaeding Development Group then took it on. The finished building has 178 apartments. Residents began moving in this July after a three-year, $68 million conversion. From the roof deck you can see the State Capitol, the Landmark Center and the First National Bank building, whose "1st" sign was relit in August.

The second is Wabasha Park, right next door. The renovation cost $4.1 million and came from the city's "Common Cent" 1% sales tax. Construction took more than a year, and concept plans had been circulating at City Hall since 2017. "If you remember what this site was like before, broken pavers and all the things, it was just to the point of replacement for the entire site," Rodriguez said. The park has public lunch tables under the pergola. Within weeks the pergola will get programmable, multicolored lighting at night. The city expects the project to wrap up in mid-October. The grand opening and ribbon cutting is set for Tuesday, Oct. 13, at noon, at 376 Wabasha St. N.

The park already sits among plenty to do. Amsterdam Bar and Hall and Ruam Mit Thai face the plaza. Afro Deli, Pino's Pizzeria, Candyland, the Palace Theatre and the Minnesota Children's Museum are all on Wabasha or just off it. So is the TRIA Rink, the Minnesota Wild's rooftop practice rink. Until now, the plaza in the middle of all that was the one spot on the block you could only walk past.

The Storefronts That Sat Empty Are Opening

The block on Wabasha is the most visible change. The smaller ones are scattered across downtown, and many are in spaces that had been empty for years. In August, the Pioneer Press counted 21 new or expanded downtown businesses. Some came through the Downtown Alliance's "Grow Downtown" program, which arranges leases as low as $1 a month for a startup's first six months. A few of the ones you can walk into today:

• River Valley Coffee Co., 350 St. Peter St., on the first floor of the Lowry Building across from City Hall. The counter had been empty since Aroma's Pizza closed in 2020.
• Jenni's Cafe, inside the Landmark Center, in the old Anita's Cafe space, which sat vacant after the pandemic. Joe Ruhland named it for his wife and co-owner, Jen. The cafe will close Oct. 26 through Oct. 30 to remodel its dining room and reopen Monday, Nov. 2.
• Meritage Underground and The Pearl, beneath Meritage in the Hamm Building at 408 St. Peter St., in the former Artists' Quarter jazz club space. Co-owner Desta Marée opened it this summer. The Pearl is open to the public on Fridays. Midweek nights have wine tastings, Thursdays are for members, and hours are posted as they're set.
• Forever Young Vintage, at Seventh and Wabasha in the Wells Fargo building. Brothers Jose and Isaac Garcia sell retro clothing, video games and collectibles. They also have a purple felt pool table they say belonged to Prince.
• Joey Mansion, 444 Wacouta St. in Lowertown, a vintage furniture and artifacts shop run by Brad Ireland and Cicely Davis-Ireland. It's set up like a two-room museum, and a huge dinosaur skull sits near the entrance.
• Jazz Cabbage, 245 E. Seventh St., a 1970s-themed cannabis dispensary from brothers Jack and Tom Whaley. It's now open seven days a week, until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The office-lobby cafes are filling in too. HepCat Coffee in the Osborn370 building, just across the new plaza, turned its counter toward the lobby seating. Owner Terry John Zila says that made the cafe about five times larger, and business is up 20% since the remodel.

Eight Weeks on the Downtown Calendar

The new places give you reasons to stop. The calendar through Thanksgiving gives you reasons to come. Here are the dated events between now and the end of November, in order:

1. Oct. 6–11. Mystic Pizza at the Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St.
2. Oct. 13, noon. Wabasha Park grand opening and ribbon cutting.
3. Oct. 16–18. The fall Saint Paul Art Crawl, free and citywide, with downtown and Lowertown stops. Union Depot's stop runs 6–10 p.m. Friday, noon–8 p.m. Saturday and noon–5 p.m. Sunday.
4. Oct. 17. Three events on the same Saturday. MNKPOPCONNECT's free KPOP Halloween Bash runs 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Union Depot. Big Head Todd and the Monsters play the Palace Theatre at 7:30 p.m., rescheduled from Jan. 24. Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves play Ordway Concert Hall, also at 7:30 p.m.
5. Oct. 23, at dusk. John Carpenter's Halloween screens in Mears Park as part of the city's Movies in the Parks.
6. Oct. 25, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. BOOnion Depot, a free family Halloween event in Union Depot's Waiting Room.
7. Nov. 14. The city lists the Tree of Lights lighting ceremony in Rice Park on this date. The Salvation Army's own page lists the display as running Nov. 15 through Jan. 6, so check the date before you go.
8. Nov. 20–22 and Nov. 27–29. The free European Christmas Market at Union Depot. Hours are 3–9 p.m. Fridays, 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Sundays. The MN Christmas Market also runs at Union Depot on Nov. 21, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
9. Nov. 26. The Thanksgiving morning Turkey Trot on Shepard Road. The 10K starts at 7:30 a.m. and the 6K at 8 a.m.

A Saturday Downtown

Here's one way to use all of it in a single trip. Start at the farmers' market on 5th Street East before it closes at 1 p.m. Then walk to the Galvan counter on Prince Street. In summer, the Galvans sell Texas-style morning tacos at the market stalls, and the indoor counter stays open until 3. Joey Mansion is a short walk up Wacouta. Head west to Wabasha, sit for a while under the pergola at Wabasha Park, and look around Forever Young a block north at Seventh. Stop at the Aldi at 10th and Robert on your way out, since it's open until 8. On the Art Crawl weekend or a Christmas Market weekend, you can add Union Depot and finish after dark.

A year ago, none of this added up to a full day downtown. Aldi had no opening date, the plaza was fenced off for construction, and the Stella's units weren't ready. The St. Paul City Council has since approved funding to renovate the Endicott Arcade and the old Woolworth's building at 428 Minnesota St. so they can take new tenants. One of the planned tenants is MN With Love, a civic salon with a cafe bar and auditorium, expected to open next year.

When a downtown gets its grocery and its park back, the blocks around them change too, and people who own homes nearby tend to notice. If you're wondering what this fall's changes might mean for your own property, Renée Wilson can walk you through a personal home valuation, based on more than 30 years of work in the St. Paul market.