Downtown St. Paul Pony up for prosperity

Condo owners asked to financially support proposed Lowertown Residential Improvement District

From small town to Lowertown

Brewing company expands to downtown St. Paul

Jake Spitzack Staff Writer

TheSt. Paul Winter Carnival is in full swing. Get out and enjoy these events. For more information, visit www.wintercarnival.com.

Minnesota State FairgroundsVulcan Snow Park, through February 5. Visitors will find a snow maze, snow mountain playing area and the artistic creations of master snow carvers participating in the Minnesota State Snow Sculpting competition. Admission and parking are free.

Landmark Center - Toasty fun can be found inside the Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth St. The Winter Carnival’s Day of Good is Friday, Feb. 3. The day will have many opportunities to donate food, blankets or blood, and spread cheer into the community. The St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation has partnered with the Winter Carnival ambassadors and their Cold Hands, Warm Hearts drive. The Northwind Titan Trooper will be parked at the Landmark Center to collect the donations for the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center.

Kids’ & Family Day is 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 4. Kids will be

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Longtime downtown developer John Mannillo is spearheading an effort to help improve the quality of life in Lowertown. He and the Rev. Bill Englund of First Baptist Church say the City of St. Paul is not adequately funding services that enhance community life in the neighborhood, so they are pitching an idea to condo owners that would have them pony up some cash to pick up the slack.

The duo is taking a page from the business sector playbook and applying it to residential life. They want to create a Residential Improvement District (RID) in Lowertown similar to the Downtown Improvement District (DID) that was formed in 2020 for the central and western areas of downtown. All major cities have improvement districts that assess commercial property owners for specific needs the property owners agree upon, such as street cleaning, security, landscaping and marketing.

St. Paul’s DID officially began in 2021 under the umbrella of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance. It operates as a separate organization with its own 13-member board of property owners who pay in to the district. The Alliance oversees several programs in the district, including the street ambassador team, litter and graffiti removal, and a Safety Communications Center that coordinates security efforts between the St. Paul Police Department and the owners of commercial buildings

Theformer owner of a micro brewery in a small town in Western Wisconsin is now swimming in the waters of a much bigger pond. He recently opened Gambit Brewing Company in Lowertown and is using his culinary background to create drinks with a seasonal flair. He also tapped his head brewer as a business partner in the new venture.

Head brewer Josh Secaur worked for Mike Christianson for three years when Christianson owned Bobtown Brewhouse and Grill in Roberts, Wis., (population approximately 2,000). During that time they often dreamed about operating in a bigger market.

“We were looking at spots for about a year and nothing was really right and then this opportunity came up and it was too good to say no,” said Secaur. “The cool thing with Mike is that his culinary background is super strong so we’re going to do house made syrups with seasonal ingredients. The seltzers will always be rotating based on what’s available and then we’re going to flavor seltzers by the glass with our house made syrups and stuff… Down the road I think we might dabble with some nitro lines.”

The space in the Pioneer Endicott building provided a turnkey