Nation Register Nomination (excerpt)

With the City managing street improvements, it was left to private efforts to encourage new building investment. In the mid nineteen-twenties, another private group of investors — The Saint Paul Association (with several former members of the Saint Paul City Club) — formed in order to capitalize on low vacancy rates and create a central “Loop” district. According to the Pioneer Press (October 27, 1929), the “Loop” included some existing buildings, but highlighted several proposed new structures of both public and private construction, such as the Minnesota Building, the planned City Hall, the Katz Building, the Public Safety Building, the First National Bank Building, the Federal Building, and the Third Street mall and parking garage. These buildings were generally concentrated in the part of Saint Paul bounded by Kellogg Boulevard, Fourth Street, St. Peter and Robert Streets, or the “heart” of downtown Saint Paul and within the Central Business District streetscape as developed above. The Minnesota Building was the first new building to be constructed in the Loop, and the Association featured prominently at the building's inauguration in October, 1929 (Pioneer Press, October 27, 1929).