[2] At that time the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation, a non-profit coordinator of development in St. Paul's historic warehouse district, had sought to fill Block 40 for some three years.

[3] Efforts to put together a project reusing existing properties on the block had fallen through, as had a modest proposal for housing and service retail by the Carley Capital Group of Madison, Wisconsin.

They had done studies of Block 40 for the Lowertown Corporation and had a history of designing housing for Boisclair which included Lakepoint Tower and the Falls and Pinnacle at Riverplace.

In addition, the financial partnerships involved in the project had to be expressed architecturally so that ownership of the complex space could be divided by multiple tenants.

Lowertown's Weiming Lu and the city planning staff stood fast for the standard Vierendeel truss and bronze aluminum.

There were issues with construction, cost overruns, inadequate financial resources, high interest rates, delays, and strategic errors made in market analysis and design.

[citation needed] Excluding the YMCA, rental housing, and the energy plant, the balance of the project (retail, offices, condos, and the parking garage) was sold in 1989 to a Canadian investor in the range of $10 to $12 million.

[citation needed] Henry Zaidan's thought to market the condos, and to reposition the retail space from the regional high end target and toward services for the neighborhood and downtown.

[citation needed] Over the years, the building has seen sporadic success, first as a shopping mall, then as an entertainment center, with restaurants and a food court.