[1] It is home to several local arts organizations, including the Minnesota Opera, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and The Schubert Club.

In 1980, Saint Paul resident Sally Ordway Irvine (a 3M heiress and arts patron) dreamed of a European-style concert hall offering "everything from opera to the Russian circus".

Fifteen Twin Cities corporations and foundations were the principal funders of the $46 million complex, the most expensive privately funded arts facility ever built in the state.

Saint Paul native Benjamin Thompson, whose other projects included the Faneuil Hall renovation in Boston and South Street Seaport in New York, was selected to design a building that would project "a visible contemporary image" but also harmoniously fit on a site facing Rice Park, a block-square park framed by historic buildings.

As designed by Thompson, Ordway Center (originally named Ordway Music Theatre) contained a 1,900-seat Music Theater; an intimate McKnight Theatre (306 seats); two large rehearsal rooms; and the Marzitelli Foyer, a spacious two-story lobby with a glass curtain-wall through which theatergoers enjoy a sweeping panorama of Rice Park, its surrounding buildings, and, in the distance, the Mississippi River.