Redistricting

Compared to the glass and steel clarity of “the CBD”—the central business district east of Hennepin Avenue—the Warehouse District has a jumbled character. The best-known buildings are the heavy warehouses and factories put up at the turn of the last century, but there are numerous others that were constructed later on. While many have been fixed up and leased, others remain shabby shells. And there are plenty of empty lots.

Still, the Warehouse District’s post-industrial cool is undeniable, as the Web designers, graphic artists, and ad agencies who have their exposed-brick, exposed-duct offices here can attest. For those who’ve hung out at long-established places like the Loon Café and the First Avenue music club, it may seem like the vibe has been here almost forever.

But the current buzz is largely a 21st-century phenomenon. District buildings that have been held by the same owners for years—in some cases, for generations—have been changing hands in the past five years, sold to new owners like Sherman and Abdul. Former owners have found that the timing was right to unload their holdings at a big profit. (One recent factor in their decisions: You might have heard that a certain local sports team will be building a new ballpark between Fifth and Seventh Streets, near the Target Center.)

New owners have found that there’s demand for more than condos as they update those buildings. So while the condo thing may be cooling, commercial development will keep the Warehouse District hot.

O Pioneers!

Served by the many railroads that weaved though its streets, the Warehouse District was a storage and distribution center for the Upper Midwest in the 1800s. Printers, garment makers, and small manufacturers also flourished here. The Wyman-Partridge was originally home to an eponymous dry-goods firm that produced Made-Rite Heather-bloom petticoat fabric, among other notable items. 

The district was spared the leveling that knocked down numerous old buildings in the Gateway area around Nicollet and Third Avenues in the 1960s. But long-standing Warehouse District businesses had begun to disappear, and by the 1970s, the area attracted artists and galleries, and the corridor between Hennepin Avenue and Second Avenue North began to sprout bars, restaurants, and creative agencies.

Still, some curious old businesses hung on. In the early ’90s, this scribe’s missus paid a visit to Architectural Antiques, then at 801 North Washington Avenue. Opening a door to what she thought was another antiques showroom, she instead stepped into an alternate reality: eight women bent over sewing machines on long tables making, of all things, 1950s-style house dresses. “Who buys these?”, she asked in astonishment. “Oh, we sell a lot of them,” one of the sewers replied. (The market for house dresses may have since dried up. At any rate, the building has gone condo, sold by its longtime owner, former metal-scrap dealer Martin Bush, in 2000.)

Employees of those nook-and-cranny businesses were the bulk of John Rimarcik’s customers when he bought a restaurant on Third Avenue North called the Monte Carlo. The joint soon evolved into a popular white-tablecloth restaurant beloved for its funky location, retro neon sign, and the mirror-backed wall of booze behind its bar. The Monte Carlo was the beginning of Rimarcik’s mini-empire of Twin Cities restaurants, which now includes Runyon’s and Café Havana.