Landmark Center geared for growth

Jake Spitzack
Staff Writer

One beating heart pumping life into the still recovering downtown entertainment scene is the iconic Landmark Center. Eighteen nonprofits and a handful of businesses and organizations call it home and many are required by their lease to offer free or affordable ($10 or less) programming throughout the year. Several new tenants have recently moved in, so offerings are expected to ramp up even more, and staff are also eyeing their next big construction project.

“We’ve been brainstorming things that we’d like to see with the café,” said Landmark Center Executive Director Amy Mino, who noted that Anita’s Café was the only tenant lost during the pandemic. “We’re looking at doing a new front of house and taking out the serving line and making it more of a typical cafe operation…. We’ve even toyed with the idea of hiring staff and running it ourselves. It’s a big amenity for the building.”

The space has a full kitchen and could be transformed into something new as early as this year if ownership details are ironed out. Funding for construction could come in part from a $1,149,720 allocation that Landmark Center received from Ramsey County this year for programming and building improvements. So far, the funding has been used for roof repairs, office space renovations, recarpeting of the basement and first floor, and much-anticipated bathroom renovations in the basement and on the fifth floor. Work on the latter two projects is expected to wrap up by the end of August.

Organizations that joined Landmark Center in the past year include the League of Women Voters Minnesota, CapitolRiver Council, Ordway Center for the Performing Arts administration, Red Bird Chapbooks Press, Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums, and LeanProject, which serves the construction industry. They join an already diverse roster of tenants that offer musical performances, art and history exhibits, craft demonstrations and more.

The building’s Musser Cortile, the large open space on the first floor, rises five floors to a massive skylight and features free lunchtime performances by local musicians on Wednesdays in the summer. The upcoming performance is Honeybutter, noon-1 p.m., August 7. The cortile also regularly features free St. Paul Civic Symphony performances on Sundays. Most Thursdays the Center features a free hourlong lunchtime performance by Schubert Club musicians. They take place in Courtroom 317 on the third floor, which in the 1930s hosted trials for gangsters Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, Doc Barker, Leon Gleckman and others.

The American Association of Woodturners Gallery of Wood Art has free exhibits showcasing wood sculptures, educational displays on woodturning, woodworking demonstrations every third Sunday of the month and more. Likewise, the Heritage Organization of Romanian Americans also curates gallery and exhibit space and holds special events. People can get a rare chance to scale to the top of the North Tower on Wednesday Aug. 21, and the North Gallery has an exhibit space currently featuring photos of national parks taken by local artist David Heberlein; on October 1 it will have a new exhibit on women’s advocacy.

Other offerings you’ll find at the building throughout the year include free Tuesday performances by Ballet Co. Laboratory dancers, Urban Expedition events that highlight culture in other countries, Irish celebrations in March, Gangster Ghost Tour in October, Old-Fashioned Holiday Bazaar in early December, and Landmark Live performances and History Plays in the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Auditorium. The center also offers grand spaces for events such as weddings and its annual fall fundraising gala, which last year was Paris-themed, and this year will be Rio de Janeiro-themed.

In 2023, Landmark Center hosted more than 300 events. New last year was the Mosaic Festival: Dance and Music of World Cultures, put on with Ethnic Dance Theatre. The Urban Expedition program also celebrated its 20th season last year and showcased countries it hadn’t before, including New Zealand and South Sudan. The Argentina event drew nearly 700 visitors. A few other highlights from the year included the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, TaikoArts Midwest Concert, Light in the Well event, Minnesota Mandolin Orchestra Concert, Minnesota Boychoir Winter Concert, Skylark Opera Theatre performance, St. Patrick’s Day Irish Celebration, BandWidth Community Band Festival, Great Pumpkin Halloween Festival and Santa’s Workshop. The Center also has its Landmarket gift shop, Ramsey County Historical Society’s research center, the building-wide “Uncle Sam Worked Here” exhibit and walking tours of the building and surrounding area.

A brief history
The Landmark Center – long known as the old federal courts building – was constructed in 1902 for use as the Federal Court House, Custom House and U.S. Post Office for the Upper Midwest. Perched alongside Rice Park, its Richardsonian Romanesque style architecture features pink granite ashlar from St. Cloud, Minn., a steeply pitched red tile roof adorned with green conical turrets, and courtrooms, offices and suites appointed with marble and carved mahogany finishes. Much of the building’s interior splendor was tarnished by the government entities operating there in the 1960s. Marble walls in the lobby were covered with green paint, the cortile skylight was roofed and painted over, and marble mosaics were replaced with crude tiling.

The building itself was saved from the wrecking ball when being decommissioned by the federal government, thanks to the Committee to Save the Old Federal Courts Building, a group of determined citizens who worked alongside several mayors and county officials. In 1969, it was one of the first structures in the state to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the nonprofit Minnesota Landmarks was established the following year to ensure adaptive reuse of the building and raise funds for an extensive restoration effort. Being a federal surplus building, it was transferred to Ramsey County in 1975, which passed along operations to Minnesota Landmarks. The building was restored to its previous grandeur, reopening to the public as Landmark Center in 1978. Today, the mission of the Center is to be a dynamic gathering place and center for arts that celebrates the cultural diversity and collective history of the community.

According to the Center’s 2023 annual report released in May, about 40 volunteers donated more than 2,600 hours to Landmark Center last year. Mino, the executive director, has been with the center for 30 years and in her current role for 21. For the past decade she was also the chair of the Rice Park Association, which puts on Summer Nights in Rice, before stepping down this year. For more information and an event calendar, visit landmarkcenter.org.

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