Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation (Saint Paul, Minn.).

Lowertown is a 180-acre area located immediately east of the central business district between Jackson Street and the Lafayette Bridge, Interstate Highway 94 and the Mississippi River. The area is the oldest part of the city and includes the Lower Landing, the St. Paul Union Depot passenger station, Mears Park, and the St. Paul Farmer's Market. In the late 1970s Lowertown consisted largely of parking lots, old empty warehouses, and a huge, defunct Union Depot used as storage space by the adjacent St. Paul post office.

In 1978 then-St. Paul mayor George Latimer decided that Lowertown needed revitalization. Concerned that economic risk would stall development, he approached the McKnight Foundation and persuaded it to grant $10 million to finance the Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation (LRC). The LRC would be an independent organization with a mission of preserving Lowertown's unique historic character while creating new jobs, housing, parks, retail businesses, and entertainment venues. The corporation would act as a catalyst for well-designed development, and as a development bank that would provide crucial gap financing for feasibility studies, loans, and loan guarantees. It would have no legal power but would rely instead on persuasion and vision to create a new urban village.

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