As Mike and Cathy Brennan were out on May 25 exploring the new CityArt Sculpture pieces installed that day, they thought about how far downtown Mankato has evolved in the last 30 years.
As they talked, the local developers referenced renovation of the Landkamer Building, which served as Mankato’s premier furniture store for 74 years before eventually becoming a glorified warehouse. With one tenant in line, they led a renovation that returned the distinctive art deco-style building to its full glory. And, eventually, nearly full occupancy.
Built in 1908 and completely renovated in 2005, it now houses the Number 4 Steakhouse and is home to various businesses in a limestone wrapper that serves as a welcome to what was a deteriorating core now called City Center.
The City Center name reflects a change in attitude, both by the city of Mankato and local developers, to a downtown that was suffering from more than a bad reputation following urban renewal of the 1960s and ‘70s that left gaping holes and an unfocused future.
Thanks in part to an investment in a civic center, which opened in 1995, downtown gained a polished reputation and new life. As the civic center approaches its 30th anniversary next year, downtown is showing true signs of the renaissance that the center’s construction promised.
The civic center had opened just months before Pat Hentges came to Mankato as city manager. Even then, he said, some people were critical of a local sales tax, with part of its proceeds to cover a projected operating shortfall for the center, which led to a general negative attitude.
Riverfront 2000 discussions had brought forward a number of goals for downtown renaissance, he said. This included a stronger presence by Minnesota State University, a greater corporate participation, increased arts and entertainment, and greater access to the riverfront.
“So, the civic center was the first project,” Hentges said. Discussion alternated between locating it in downtown or on the riverfront, with some pushing to have it located on the area of hilltop expansion, with River Hills Mall opening in 1991.
“The whole basis was downtown,” he said, “and let’s help it be a stimulus, to be a centerpiece for downtown development.” By beginning there, more of those other plan goals could be better achieved.
Hentges and others note that accomplishing other goals was a more gradual process — a large entertainment venue requires bar and restaurant business, for example — but by 2008, that momentum was beginning to take hold.
The Landkamer Building brought an upscale restaurant named Contessa. While it didn’t stay long, it led to Number 4 and eventually more bars and restaurants that gave downtown a stronger sense of being able to fulfill the wants of visitors to civic center events and, eventually, other downtown venues.
Combination of efforts
Downtown has experienced a combination of new construction and renovations of existing buildings.
Along just one side of Second Street alone, Old National Bank is the main tenant of a new office building that includes Sky One Eleven Event Space; a former bar and restaurant (most recently Blethen Gage and Krause Law Office) has become Shared Spaces and houses nonprofits under one roof; the former Northwestern Bank Building has become Atwood Plaza and continues as an office center; the nearly 150-year-old Masonic Lodge has added event center to its job description; and APX Construction looks to turn the Historic Post Office into a multi-business entertainment venue.
On the other side of Second is the Landkamer Building followed by the Mayo Health System Event Center — an expansion of the original civic center constructed after MSU hockey became a full-time tenant of the arena — and the former HECO Building, now housing U.S. Bank, various businesses and apartments.
The Brennans have a unique perspective of downtown, not only as developers but as fifth-floor residents of their Bridge Plaza building, which sits on the site of the former Embers Restaurant on North Riverfront Drive.
“Bridge Plaza” came about not only because of its location next to the Veterans Memorial Bridge, but because the location — as proven by the folds of a city map, Cathy Brennan said — is the geographic center of Mankato.
As such, it serves as a bridge, of sorts, between downtown and Old Town, the past, present and future, and commercial and residential. The location’s importance was shown, they said, when Second Street was reconnected and became a second major north-south roadway after first being dead-ended when the bridge was built.
They point to a book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs, recommended to them by Tony Filipovitch, retired urban studies professor, as a guideline, of sorts. That and three years in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where a similar downtown renaissance was taking place, were critical in their approach to Mankato, they said.
The 1961 book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, including abandoning downtown in favor of malls and box stores on the outskirts of town. It holds this occurrence responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States.
Many of those critiques could be applied to Mankato, as well as so many other cities, they said.
“What makes Northfield unique, St. Cloud, anybody, is the downtown because it’s like the signature,” Cathy Brennan said, adding they are “urban people” by choice. The same was true for Gislason Hunter Law Office, which wanted to locate in downtown Mankato in the 1990s.
The Brennans had been hoping to take on renovation of the Landkamer Building but needed a tenant. The structure had passed Mike’s “quarter test,” a scrape of the brick with a coin proving it was well-built, and they approached Gislason officers with an opportunity.
“We said, we’ll build an office for you (on the second floor of the Landkamer Building),” she said. “And that was the beginning of it.”
A new CityArt Sculpture Walk piece by Matthew Hoffman, located across the street from the Landkamer Building, is a message: “Be Here Now.” The message encourages people to live in the moment, but it’s a message that has been resonating with downtown for 30 years.
The success for downtown revitalization, they say, has three key components: a government willing to help give direction and support, developers and other businesses willing to take a chance, and a citizenry willing to work with those two groups to bring a vision to life.
That’s where folks like Tami Paulsen and Stacey Straka come into the picture.
Getting citizens involved
For decades, the city has been involving citizens from the beginning in future-planning efforts. Riverfront 2000, Envision 2020, the City Center Renaissance, and now the more regional Transforming Tomorrow Together coordinated by Greater Mankato Growth, have sought and succeeded by bringing in resident voices.
“The city can do infrastructure and support. But the business community has to come forward with the money. And the citizens have to be the volunteers,” Paulsen said.
That involvement in the implementation, she and Straka said, is strengthened by the sense of ownership that comes from having a seat at the table from the beginning brainstorming sessions.
In addition, efforts like the InterCity Leadership Visits, where representatives from all parts of the community traveled together to cities that had success with these efforts, helped create a shared vision and a true belief that it can be done, they said.
That success is shown in that Mankato is now the destination for similar trips by other cities seeking to bring life back to their downtowns.
“I think those trips were key,” Straka said. “You know, there were a lot of concepts floating (around), but all of sudden you can see it implemented somewhere and what it meant. Yeah, those first two trips (to Fort Collins, Colorado, and Bellingham, Washington) were critical to that.”
Paul Vogel, retiring Mankato community development director, has seen most of these changes. Even as goals were accomplished through the City Center Renaissance’s eight “planning principles,” he recognized some of them simply created a foundation for changes yet to come. Many of those changes have yet to be identified.
City Manager Susan Arntz acknowledged that replacing and improving infrastructure can be a non-glamorous but essential part of these efforts.
“So, the good news is, as we go forward, there aren’t as many large, new things we have to create. The good news is that it leaves more opportunity for either public and private partners to reinvent … continue to reuse what we have and, you know, continue to grow and develop the community.”
Ideas lead to reinvention
One of the biggest reinvention projects is going on now on Main Street.
Developer Jon Kietzer has been working since he bought the Landmark Building at Second and Main streets in 2014 to find a way to use the historic building for a new purpose. After seeing a warehouse in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, transformed into a boutique hotel, he hoped for the same future for the former Dodge garage and office/residential building.
At one point, he hoped to connect the boutique hotel to the nearby City Center Hotel for a unique place for folks to stay. And then the roof came crashing down on his idea in February 2023. Literally.
It’s often much more expensive to renovate and repurpose an old building than to construct new, he said, and that turned out to be the case with the Landmark. And that became more apparent when looking to put the building back together after freezing water caused third-floor structural damage.
The Eckman Building, as it was first known, was built in 1919 by C.W. and W.H. Eckman, car dealers, on property initially occupied by the City Hotel, according to a June 24, 1966, newspaper article.
Measuring 90-by-100 feet, it was constructed with steel and concrete. The first floor was used as a display room, second floor as the service department and the third for a car-painting department. When initially renovated in 1966, the first floor became commercial space, the second floor apartments, and the third a combination of dentist offices and the Worson-Polzin dental labs.
Because of the expense of renovation, Kietzer sought a historic designation, which would have opened the door to potential preservation dollars. He said he submitted paperwork three times, even engaging The History Writers for more in-depth research, but was denied each time.
“There were not enough extant features on the interior of the building (to qualify),” he said. When the Dodge garage was operating as offices, many of those features were removed, he said.
Although plans now call for the demolition of the building, Kietzer and development partner Bryan Sowers, former First Bank Mankato president, plan to incorporate pieces of it into the design, which now will be accessed from South Second Street.
“We would like to think we’re a ways down the path to making Mankato a regional hub,” Sowers said, “and we’re continuing to create and add on to its history.”
This partnership has brought together developers who already have made a strong imprint on recent downtown development: Tony Frentz, Chad Surprenant and Kyle Smith. Straka and Paulsen count them, along with former Pub 500 owner Tom Frederick Jr. and Minnstar Bank, as early believers in downtown renaissance.
Seeing into the future
The Brennans can see most of City Center Hotel and some of the Landmark Center building from their living room, though some of the latter is obscured by the multi-floor PrairieCare building at 120 E. Main St. They’re excited about the amenities the hotel development will bring to downtown when completed.
Straka was quick to acknowledge that Hentges was among the earliest and strongest supporters of efforts to revitalize downtown, and Paulsen added an anecdote from installation of the first CityArt Sculpture Walk to reinforce that.
“He was walking downtown and he came up to me and he said, ‘Tammy, I think this is my happiest day since I took this job, seeing this,’ because there were people on bikes, people walking.”
Most of the revitalization work so far has been concentrated in the city center, the 40-some blocks of downtown Mankato. But Straka noted that four blocks of South Front Street beyond the Public Safety Center are yet to be done. Paulsen pointed out that North Mankato has been fully involved, with great accomplishments on Belgrade Avenue and Commerce Drive coming from these efforts.
With current road construction work on North Riverfront Drive, overall amenities identified by citizens in various discussions are being incorporated and will reflect the achievements already seen in city center, Arntz stated.
Vogel added that work will continue.
“There’s always work to be done,” he said. “That’s the beauty of planning, it never ends.”