Hip Places to live in St. Paul - apartment search (Minneapolis: 2014, apartments)

[Stracey]

My boyfriend just got transferred to 3M in St. Paul. We began our apartment search in downtown Minneapolis but would really like to find something just as "hip" in St. Paul. A friend of mine told me that Downtown St. Paul is pretty dead and suggested that we check into the Grand Avenue area/ Highland Park. Any suggestions or insight would be greatly appreciated!

[ManBearPig1]

Lowertown around Mears Park

[Pisces69]

Yeah Summit Hill / Cathedral Hill or Selby Dale area and you can still get to downtown from there too. Downtown STP isn't dead but it's relatively quiet.

[Mason3000]

Grand Ave is popular, trendy, cosmopolitan, but not hip. Selby/Dale is hip. Lowertown is hip.

[mnsuburbanite]

I have lived in St. Paul and I currently work in St. Paul so I'm pretty familiar with the area. The Lowertown/Mears Park neighborhood is most definitely, absolutely the BEST place to move to right now for a couple of reasons:

1) Because that particular downtown area is growing and improving immensely with nightclubs and really cool, trendy bar/restaurants

2) The NHL Wild play nearby, there's concerts and events going on in downtown St. Paul every night, and the St. Paul Saints (independent league baseball) will have a new state of the art stadium in a couple years.

3) Because 24-hour light rail service will be completed by Summer 2014 and you'll have very affordable public transportation to Minneapolis, Downtown Minneapolis, NW suburbs, the Mall of America, and eventually the SW suburbs.

4) It's far more affordable than Minneapolis, easier to get around, and in 2-3 years it'll be a much more expensive and popular area to live.

[StanleyVegas]

Lowertown. I believe Union Depot is scheduled to open by the end of this year with additional restaurants and retail. It will also have a bike center as part of the new transit hub. A grocery store is coming (Lunds), and the new ballpark. Already there is Mears Parks with the Thursday night concerts in summer, the Farmer's Market, the Bulldog, etc.

[Stracey]

Thank you for all the information. We really loved the apartments at the Lowertown Commons. We were torn between an apartment there or one in Uptown Minneapolis, however, after going out in downtown St. Paul last Friday night we decided to go with the place in Uptown. Downtown St. Paul was pretty quiet.. too quiet for us. Thanks again!

[l12]

Originally Posted by Stracey

Thank you for all the information. We really loved the apartments at the Lowertown Commons. We were torn between an apartment there or one in Uptown Minneapolis, however, after going out in downtown St. Paul last Friday night we decided to go with the place in Uptown. Downtown St. Paul was pretty quiet.. too quiet for us. Thanks again!

I am actually facing the same situation, we live in downtown Minneapolis and love it but my wife may get a job at 3M. I think we will bite the bullet and move to St. Paul.

You may know this already, (I'm not sure where you are from), but the commute from Uptown to 3M (which is on the other side of St. Paul) will be a nightmare (at least, Twin Cities level nightmare).

If you like Uptown, Grand Ave. between Victoria & Dale & Selby Ave. from Dale to the cathedral offer similar liveliness to most of Uptown. It is a little more grown-up and sedated, but not dead like downtown St. Paul, which is ghostly I agree, though they are trying hard to change that and probably will say by 2014, but that doesn't help us now.

[blueballerina]

Lowertown or District del Sol. Avoid Dayton's Bluff.

[l12]

Just to update, the commute from MPLS to St Paul is actually not that bad, the other way is much worse. Can be as little as 20 min from downtown MPLS to STP. Of course snow can screw that up. I don't know how long it takes to get from Uptown to 94 though in the morning, anyone?