Galtier Plaza

The Most Livable City in America™
mulad
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Re: Cray Plaza (née Galtier Plaza)

Postby mulad » March 25th, 2017, 9:08 am

Cray is mostly moved out of the Galtier building at this point, though I think some trucks are still running between the sites today. Employees did final packing up on Wednesday, and most people have been working from home or taking time off for Thursday, Friday, and the weekend. I was one of the lucky(-ish) ones to be in early, moving a room full of computer lab equipment. The first official day at the Mall of America is Monday.

If I recall correctly, Cray's lease runs until April 30 / May 1, so there will still be some cleanup activity in the Galtier building for a few more weeks. I heard a rumor that another company from an inner suburb is planning to move into the former Cray space pretty soon (I haven't seen any confirmation in the news about who it is, though, so I won't say). They might keep the old cubicles, or they might not.

bptenor
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Re: Cray Plaza (née Galtier Plaza)

Postby bptenor » March 25th, 2017, 9:30 am

I hope those rumors are true. It's so eerily quiet in Cray Plaza now (Galtier Plaza?). Even so, sad to see Cray go.

at40man
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Re: Cray Plaza (née Galtier Plaza)

Postby at40man » April 18th, 2017, 8:09 am

Isn't this part of why Cray left? Lack of contiguous office space at the highest level?
That's the official word. There was also the small matter of it raining in the office rather regularly. And the flood that took out the machine room. And the fact that the Green Line was entirely constructed from scratch before the elevators taken out by said flood were fully operational.
Pulling this back into the Galtier Plaza thread.

I'm really curious - having worked and lived in the building myself -- what was their "justification" as to why it took them so long to fix those elevators? They were down/intermittent for an obscene amount of time.

David Greene
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Re: Cray Plaza (née Galtier Plaza)

Postby David Greene » April 18th, 2017, 9:11 am

We were told that the elevators were custom and they had a hard time getting parts. I can't imagine an elevator motor differs that much between models. I believe they had to update the electronics to meet code, but again, I assume that stuff is pretty standard. And judging from what they did to the interior of the elevators, I think they got the light fixtures from Home Depot.

So my guess is management didn't have the money.

amiller92
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Re: Cray Plaza (née Galtier Plaza)

Postby amiller92 » April 18th, 2017, 9:23 am

We were told that the elevators were custom and they had a hard time getting parts. I can't imagine an elevator motor differs that much between models.
I actually think there are (intentionally) likely quite different parts from different manufacturers, but there are like 5 elevator manufacturers in the world, so I don't know what "custom" would mean.

(My old firm had an elevator client, which I never really worked for but had enough exposure to get a passing sense of the industry)

David Greene
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby David Greene » April 18th, 2017, 2:39 pm

Not saying you're wrong, but it's an electric motor. Not too many ways to build one of those.

But that's the engineer talking, not marketing.

And yes, that's tongue-in-cheek. I'm sure there are all kinds of safety certifications to get through. But if you're an elevator company differentiating on your motor, I think perhaps you're doing it wrong.

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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby at40man » August 2nd, 2017, 11:12 am

http://www.twincities.com/2017/08/02/fh ... s-st-paul/

1. Can Nan Hynes be ousted already? She is totally incompetent at managing Galtier.
2. With the Fhima exiting, can that idiotic brick wall be removed and main entrance to the building be restored?

at40man
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby at40man » August 2nd, 2017, 2:30 pm

Also, I just came across this interesting post by John Mannillo in 2014:
About five years ago, the year before the previous Mayoral election, Cray
Research was negotiating with the Galtier Plaza building owner for a possible
move to Lowertown. The City, in their haste to expedite the deal before the
election, agreed to vacate public easements in the property. This in fact
gifted Millions of dollars in easement rights to the property owner, on three
levels of Galtier. This was done, in the City Administration's opinion, in
order to secure the deal. Remember Cray wasn't the recipient. By just
granting temporary use to Cray of the easements would have been more than
adequate. Instead, when Cray leaves, the easement stays with the building
owner. Just another example of lack of experience and poor judgment that
ultimately results in higher taxes to the public.

David Greene
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby David Greene » August 2nd, 2017, 2:43 pm

http://www.twincities.com/2017/08/02/fh ... s-st-paul/

1. Can Nan Hynes be ousted already? She is totally incompetent at managing Galtier.
2. With the Fhima exiting, can that idiotic brick wall be removed and main entrance to the building be restored?
I don't know if that's Nan's fault or Fhima's. Neither LoTo nor Faces ever seemed very busy. They had some evening events but I image it only worked financially due to very favorable lease terms and/or handouts from the city.

I mean, yeah, Nan has done terrible things, but so has Fhima.

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blindeke
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby blindeke » August 4th, 2017, 11:53 am

Did all of you see this? Some pretty damning quotes about that building.

https://twitter.com/FrederickMelo/statu ... 9132348416

Who owns the building anyway?

SurlyLHT
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby SurlyLHT » August 4th, 2017, 2:24 pm

I hope the city starts to take some more responsibility for their downtown. You would think the city and business leaders could get some sort of ambassadors/security to keep an eye on the skyways. The author of the letter made some good points and I hope the city leadership is paying attention. We need two strong downtowns.

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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby David Greene » August 8th, 2017, 10:26 am

While I strongly disagree with the language used to describe people, the building itself indeed has fatal flaws. It rained indoors, for God's sake. Mario, formerly of Andrea's pizza, can tell you some stories. Building management shows little interest in maintenance.

Employees generally liked the location, but hated the building. It was a relief when our group got to move across the street into the Railroad and Bank building.

at40man
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby at40man » January 29th, 2018, 9:47 am

I took a swing through Galtier yesterday. It is dead, dead, dead. There is only one vendor left in the food court; the Chinese restaurant. Subway moved out on January 2nd. Either Nan is trying to run out their leases, or they have had it with her. I wonder if a long term lease between Chinese and Galtier exists. At this point, they technically are the only original tenants of the building.

A few years back Mario had told me that Nan had hoped to get rid of the food court entirely and fill it with offices. I don't think that would go over so well with the condo owners above unless an arcade is created to move people between the "On the Park" lobby entrance and rest of the Plaza. Nan had tried similarly tried to encroach on an easement on the first floor, which would have cut off residents in Jackson tower from accessing the rest of the building and skyway system. There almost was a lawsuit over that one. Back when I worked there in the mid-2000s, she had already encroached upon second and third floor easements.

When do the naming rights to the building expire? It seems silly to call it Cray Plaza at this point.

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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby David Greene » January 29th, 2018, 10:23 am

Should have expired the minute we broke the lease. Maybe they can't afford to update signs.

at40man
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby at40man » December 18th, 2019, 2:32 pm

https://www.twincities.com/2019/12/17/n ... ray-plaza/

It should be interesting to see what is done here; much of the indoor atrium is inwardly-focused. When I worked there, we had a decent amount of skyway traffic. The food court also used to be pretty busy, and that corner space would easily be successful with street retail or restaurant. Bricking up the main entrance on Sibley for a bar was a big big mistake that never should have happened.

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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby Vagueperson » December 18th, 2019, 8:11 pm

any pictures of what it looked like before?

Uptown46
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby Uptown46 » December 18th, 2019, 8:46 pm


at40man
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Re: Galtier Plaza

Postby at40man » March 27th, 2024, 7:20 pm

https://www.twincities.com/2024/03/27/b ... kyrec/amp/

I can see converting the offices, but surprising they would convert the entire retail section to housing as well. I also wonder why they wouldn’t have full service weight equipment in there.

Glad it’s being used again, but downtown could still use a full service gym that is open to the public.


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