Eight bids for Lowry Apartments, but new owners can’t come soon enough for tenants

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

Key fobs that won’t open mailroom doors. Squatters moving into vacant apartments. Elevators that break down between floors. Security guards who no longer work weekdays. The sudden closure of the Gray Duck Tavern.

After three years at the once-storied Lowry Apartments in downtown St. Paul, Megan Thomas has had enough. Thomas, whose mobility is limited, documented what she described as escalating maintenance and safety concerns, packed up her things this week and filed rent escrow papers — a type of legal claim demanding repairs — with Ramsey County and Madison Equities, the property owner of record for the former hotel building at Fourth and Wabasha streets, which dates to 1928. Her hearing is scheduled for Aug. 6.

“A third party is holding my rent and will decide what to do with it,” said Thomas, who has otherwise enjoyed living downtown and even befriended the site’s previous property manager. “There’s a lot of great people. The rent, while not cheap, is under market rate. … (But) we’ve got one maintenance guy who has to cover multiple buildings. I feel badly for people who are legitimately trying to do their job.”

Could there be better days ahead? Through real estate brokerage CBRE, Madison Equities recently placed 10 commercial properties on the market together at once, an unprecedented offering of more than 1.6 million square feet of commercial space, most of it offices and parking ramps, and almost all of it in downtown St. Paul.

The 11-story Lowry Apartments building was listed separately, and a four-week marketing period wrapped about a month ago.

“We had eight offers and those are under review right now,” said Abe Roberts, a senior vice president with Marcus & Millichap, the real estate brokerage representing Madison Equities in the sale. “We haven’t selected a buyer yet.”

A history of housing complaints

For some tenants, new ownership can’t come soon enough.

“Security only comes late at night to keep the (drug users) from coming in, but they’re not really doing their job, because they always end up coming in,” said LaShawna Harris, who said she was homeless for four years before moving into the building in March. She said tenants have had to contend with broken locks, mice and cockroaches.

Curtis Shaw, 65, has lived at Lowry for 2 1/2 years, but he recently learned his federal Section 8 housing voucher no longer would cover the majority of his rent, given the condition of his unit.

“Because they won’t fix anything!” said Shaw, standing outside the Lowry’s plywood-covered front door on Tuesday. “I’m not going to pay $1,000 to live here.”

A spokesman for the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections confirmed on Monday that the Lowry Apartments have been the subject of some 20 housing complaints already this year, ranging from out-of-order elevators to rodent and insect infestations, as well as issues with the alarm system and maintenance needed on windows. Another 14 complaints were logged last year, compared with 14 in 2022, six in 2021 and five in 2020.

Roberts, with Marcus & Millichap, would not comment on deferred maintenance in the building, except to confirm that the property will be sold as-is. He expects Madison Equities to decide on a buyer “within the next week or two.”

Also included in the sale will be the Gray Duck Tavern, a popular bar and restaurant on the ground floor of the building and across the street from St. Paul City Hall. The tavern abruptly closed this month, with a sign in the window indicating it will not reopen.

“It’s a separate entity, but it’s part of the sale,” Roberts said.

Gray Duck’s sudden shuttering surprised residential tenants. Its closure follows the departure in March of the Ramsey County Attorney’s office, which previously rented at least two retail spaces in the building.

“Nobody foresaw Gray Duck closing,” Thomas said. “It was always busy for lunch. If they had been opened this past weekend, they would have raked in a lot of money with the (Minnesota Yacht Club) music festival. There are no more non-residential tenants in the building.”

“If there’s a new buyer, I would definitely want them to come in and explain to us and give us a timeline about what will be done,” she added. “No one has ever given us any communication, whatsoever.”

Her final straw

Thomas said as much as she’s enjoying living downtown, her “last straw” came about a week ago. An attorney representing Madison Equities and other downtown property owners wrote a letter to the St. Paul City Council objecting to their pending inclusion in an expanded Downtown Improvement District, which charges building owners dues for extra downtown services, such as added bike patrols and litter pickup.

“Restaurants have gone out of business,” wrote attorney Kelly Hadac. “Businesses have gone bankrupt. Large buildings are vacant.”

Thomas said she finds the company’s complaints ironic. When she emailed the listed contact on the company’s website to indicate she was putting her rent in escrow, the email bounced back indicating the employee no longer worked there.

Two Saturdays ago, while her personal care attendant was in the 11th floor laundry room, an elevator servicing that floor broke down, requiring an emergency visit from the St. Paul Fire Department to free tenants trapped between floors.

A key fob for the mailroom stopped working last weekend. And not long ago, someone forced the deadbolt on the vacant apartment across the hall from her and effectively commandeered it, squatting until they were forced out, Thomas said.

“They want the city to provide more security and police, but they have not even provided the security listed in my lease,” said Thomas, noting Madison Equities security guards once were stationed around the clock.

“The problems he’s complaining about are problems they’ve contributed to through the management here,” she said. “They’re complaining about homeless people and drug addicts breaking in places, but all the alcohol (at Gray Duck) is still on the bar and visible from the street.”

Likewise, she said, “one of the windows on the front door on Wabasha under the Gray Duck was shot out a few weeks ago. They put a piece of cardboard over and never repaired it.”

The Lowry has seen better days. The building once offered extended stays to Ecolab professionals, and around 2017 had two floors of housing units converted to short-term rentals. It hit tough times during the pandemic, which tenants say brought in an influx of previously homeless residents, some with substance abuse issues, without the necessary support services.

After buying the Lowry in 2012 for $4.8 million, the late Jim Crockarell — the principal behind Madison Equities — once envisioned opening a rooftop restaurant there. The building, located at 345 N. Wabasha St., now carries an estimated market value of $9.5 million, according to Ramsey County property records. The building owner is late on $275,500 in property taxes due this year, incurring a tax penalty of $12,400, county records show.

The Lowry holds a footnote in music history. The Oz, a former basement disco club that opened in the Lowry on Valentine’s Day in 1979, once was a popular downtown hangout, with clientele including famed politicians and writers. Producer Steven Greenberg and sound engineer David Rivkin used the venue to repeatedly test their mix of the 1980 hit song “Funkytown,” by Lipps Inc.

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