Office space lottery could boost struggling downtown St. Paul

Free office space hopes to boost St. Paul

St. Paul is holding a lottery to give away six months of free office space and parking in downtown in the hopes that once people come back to the area – they will stay there.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - Downtown St. Paul has struggled to keep businesses since the COVID-19 pandemic, so now the city is hoping to lure workers back by giving away space.

Office lottery

Their new incentive is a lottery with 20 winners who will get six months of free work space and parking.

It’s aimed at small businesses and the idea is that people will come downtown, fall in love, and stay.

Downtown positive

Not all offices are built the same.

Wellworth is a co-working business in downtown St. Paul where members share space and usually find lower rents.

City leaders see about 100 people sharing the space as a positive for downtown St. Paul.

Also good: Visitors are back downtown in numbers a little higher than before the pandemic.

The mile-square area also has a steady 11,000 residents or so.

Struggling businesses

You don’t have to look far and wide to see an empty storefront or a restaurant that couldn’t survive the exodus of workers.

"We're still maybe 70% of where we were month over month in terms of worker traffic in downtown Saint Paul," said Joe Spencer of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance. "When our patterns change, when our habits change, it is hard to break those habits and patterns."

The city is coming at the problem from several angles, including big projects along the river and by the Xcel Energy Center.

Special office space

But the first impact could come from a small initiative designed to get a couple dozen more people to work at Wellworth.

"They'll be mostly in this area," said Rena Carlson Rasmussen of Wellworth as she showed FOX 9 where the winners will be given office space. "We've got lots of different zones, lots of different places that people can work."

Why it could work

"We think once people try it there, they're going to love it," said St. Paul City Councilmember Rebecca Noecker. "They're going to come back."

The city is subsidizing the lottery in the hope that downtown will remind people why it was so attractive to them not so long ago.

"It's easy to take for granted how amazing it is to work in a downtown," said Councilmember Noecker. "I can step out of my office. I can eat at any number of restaurants. I can go to happy hour anywhere after work. I have amazing cultural entertainment options right outside my door."