Landmark Tower Office-to-Residential Conversion, Saint Paul

The Landmark Tower office-to-residential conversion in downtown Saint Paul put 187 apartments into a 25-story glass tower that was less than 40 years old when it went on the National Register. Sherman Associates opened the $97 million project in May 2025, and it’s now the working test of whether Minnesota’s emptying office towers can pencil as housing.

It needed nearly every subsidy on the shelf. That’s the lesson.

Project Scope

The building at 345 St. Peter Street opened in the early 1980s as Amhoist Tower, headquarters of American Hoist and Derrick. By 2023 its office floors were less than 10 percent occupied, according to the Villager, which reported that Sherman paid $8.1 million for the property. Condominiums on the top floors stayed in place. The office floors below became rentals.

BKV Group designed the conversion and Frana Companies built it. BKV’s project sheet lists Loucks as civil engineer, Lerch Bates as curtain wall engineer, Hess Roise as historic consultant and Sustainable Investment Group as LEED consultant. BKV counts 213,000 gross square feet; Sherman’s own case study says 251,000 total, a gap neither explains. Apartments run about 850 to 900 square feet, and the tower’s stepped plan produces an unusual number of corner units.

Amenities sit on the sixth floor, where a roof deck holds a spa pool, and on the 18th, which has a lounge facing the Mississippi. The project earned LEED Silver. Sherman says 75 percent of demolition and construction material was recycled.

Why It Matters

The 2022 National Register listing wasn’t sentiment. It made a 1980s office tower eligible for a 20 percent federal historic tax credit and a matching 20 percent from the state, per BKV. The city added tax-increment financing: BKV and Axios put it at $12 million, while the Villager reported a district worth more than $21 million when the council approved it in August 2023. Three lenders, Johnson Bank, Bell Bank and National Bank of Commerce, supplied debt.

Run the math and it’s about $519,000 a unit for market-rate housing. Axios reported asking rents of $2.25 to $2.50 a square foot at opening, which doesn’t carry that basis without help.

Chris Sherman, the developer’s chief executive, told Axios the building would be “a case study” for other conversions. He’s right, though maybe not the way he meant. The same report said the tower was assessed at $6 million and is projected at $30 million to $35 million once it’s fully leased, so the public return is real. It just took three layers of public money to get there.

Project Team & Details