Details of St. Paul Riverfront Plans Emerge

"Ramsey County commissioners received their first update this week on a developer’s grand plan to develop downtown St. Paul’s riverfront, with notable exception: how much it will cost," reports Tad Vezner.

Ramsey County owns Riverfront Properties, a nearly five-acre site located along the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in downtown Saint Paul, and has been searching for a developer to redevelop the site after beginning deconstruction of the prison buildings on the site in 2015.

Now Los Angeles-based AECOM is pitching the development of an "open air shelf" on the site. "Four towers — one of them potentially as tall as St. Paul’s highest building, Wells Fargo Place, at about 40 stories — would anchor the 12-acre site with a mix of apartments, retail, offices and a boutique hotel. Surrounding it could be such open-air features as a bandshell and tiered, shaded areas to sit and watch the river," according to Vezner.