“3M became a beacon of innovation at this site,” the St. Paul Port Authority says of its Beacon Bluff development. Now the SPPA is looking for new beacons to occupy its 61 acres in the east side neighborhood of Dayton’s Bluff.
Several 1930s structures that were 3M’s headquarters are available for reuse, including President William L. McKnight’s old offices, but the majority of the land is open for new construction. Already building there are the medical transportation group of St. Paul’s HealthEast Care System and Baldinger Bakery. The 122-year-old St. Paul bakery (McDonald’s is a customer) will nearly triple the size of its operations with its new facility opening in 2011.
Branding the site as Beacon Bluff was done by Peter Hill Design, an Edina firm run by former east-sider Peter Hill. He says branding a piece of land was trickier than working with consumer products for two reasons. One, the audience or “consumer” isn’t in one tidy niche. The brand had to be “open ended” to appeal to all types of businesses, regionally and nationally, he says. Second, unlike many products, this development could stand for decades.
“So in the back of our heads,” Hill says, “we had, ‘This is going to be here for 50 years, and may not change. What would we want to see in 50 years? What do we think is going to be timeless?’”
