St. Paul offering free co-working space, parking in effort to repopulate downtown

The city of St. Paul is helping fund a lottery early next year.

The jackpot: Free downtown co-working space and parking for six months.

This small effort is part of a larger push to revitalize downtown St. Paul after the pandemic and subsequent rise of remote and hybrid work drained the commuter crowd. Like downtowns across the country, St. Paul’s urban core struggled to recover foot traffic as it grappled with high office vacancies, the loss of some long-tenured businesses and a rise in homelessness and addiction.

The city is chipping in a few thousand dollars to help subsidize the program and its marketing.

“In the past, we knew that if we could attract companies to a city, they would bring their workers with them,” said City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represents downtown. “I started wondering if, in a time of hybrid and remote work, maybe what we need to do is attract people themselves and take advantage of the fact that we have something that very other few places can boast of, which is this incredible downtown.”

From now until the end of the month, people can fill out an online form for a shot at free access to Wellworth, a community-centric co-working space with internet and printers, conference rooms, rooftop patios and mail service. Wellworth will then reach out to schedule a short tour of the space, a requirement for entry into the lottery.

In early January, 10 winners will receive a six-month membership that would otherwise cost $1,650, plus free access to a city-owned parking ramp nearby. Ten others will be offered heavily discounted $50-a-month memberships.

Beyond this, public and private officials are also uniting around a downtown investment strategy that aims to convert empty offices to housing, improve the pedestrian experience and move forward key redevelopment projects, including at the Xcel Energy Center and Central Station light rail stop. That vision would take several years — and millions of dollars — to bring to fruition.

“As we’re working on those longer-term projects, it’s short-term innovative ideas like this that can create some of that energy,” Noecker said of the co-working lottery.

Wellworth opened in 2018 at the corner of Minnesota Street and Seventh Place in a newly renovated building that once housed an F.W. Woolworth department store.

Operations manager Jamie Rissi said Wellworth typically has between 15 and 40 people using its space on a daily basis and about 130 members total.

“People got so used to working from home during the pandemic,” Rissi said. “It’s so convenient. But as the years go on, that’s where the loneliness comes in, and we hear from people saying they need to get out of the house.”

So far, Rissi said Wellworth has heard from more than 100 people interested in the lottery. Many are from St. Paul, she said, as well as nearby suburbs like Woodbury and Eagan.

“The idea was to help people get over barriers by publicly subsidizing them for a short period of time,” Noecker said, “knowing that once they get started, our bet is that they’re going to love it, and they’re going to want to stay.”