Downtown St. Paul's Holiday Walk Has a New Middle Stop This Year, and It's on Wabasha Street

The Rice Park Tree of Lights starts on Saturday, November 14. Six days later, the European Christmas Market opens at Union Depot. The walk between those two events runs straight through Wabasha Street, and over the past year its 300 block went from a worn plaza beside an emptied office tower to a renovated city park, a newly occupied apartment building and a cluster of open storefronts. That gives the walk from Rice Park to Lowertown a middle worth stopping in.

Both Ends Already Have Their Dates

The west end is Rice Park at 109 4th St. W. The Salvation Army and the City of Saint Paul run the Tree of Lights there. The November 14 kickoff has live music, a selfie station, and hot cocoa and cookies. The light shows run every 15 minutes starting at 5 p.m. each night, change weekly and continue through January 6, 2027. Admission is free.

The east end is Lowertown, and its calendar is busier.

The free Mears Park celebration has lights, live music, games, hot cocoa and s'mores. The Christmas Market is also free. This year it lists more than 80 vendors and adds a new Kid Zone. GLOW's new attraction at CHS Field is an interactive experience called Wand-er land, and Vixen's Zip Line and the Snowy Slide are back.

Rice Park is about four blocks west of Mears Park. For most of the past decade, the walk between them ran past a plaza nobody thought of as a park.

The Plaza on Wabasha Is a Park Again

St. Paul has owned the plaza in the 300 block of Wabasha Street since 1979. Over the years it has been called Capital Centre Plaza, Ecolab Plaza and Osborn Plaza. Its new name is Wabasha Park. Parks and Recreation spent more than a year and $4.1 million rebuilding it, using money from the city's voter-approved "Common Cent" sales tax. Concept plans had been circulating at City Hall since 2017.

According to the City of Saint Paul, the work added a new shelter, upgraded lighting and landscaping, more seating and better circulation. It also restored the Skygate sculpture. The city scheduled the park's grand opening and ribbon cutting for October 13.

The shelter is a pergola with a wavy, curving roof over public lunch tables. In late September, Parks and Recreation Director Andy Rodriguez told the Pioneer Press that it was slated for programmable, multicolored lighting at night. "We haven't even turned the lights on yet," he said. "It's going to be cool when that happens." He told the paper that many people never realized the site was parkland at all: "People thought it was just the front door to the Osborn building, or Ecolab at the time."

Most of what changed this year sits around the park. The former Ecolab University Center tower next door reopened as Stella, a 178-unit apartment building. Kaeding Development Group spent three years and $68 million on the conversion, and residents began moving in in July. On the other side of the plaza is Osborn370 at 370 Wabasha St., an office building whose tenants include HepCat Coffee and several new city offices. Amsterdam Bar & Hall and Ruam Mit Thai sit across the street. The Pioneer Press suggested that this block of Wabasha, between Fifth and Sixth streets, may now be downtown's most active.

Where to Stop Between the Lights

On a winter walk, you need places to warm up. Several of the most useful ones opened or reopened within the past year. Here they are in order, from Rice Park toward Lowertown:

1. Jenni's Cafe, Landmark Center. Joe and Jen Ruhland run this breakfast and lunch spot on the Landmark Center's first floor, in the former Anita's Cafe space, which had been empty since the pandemic. The menu includes sandwiches, fair trade lattes, pastries and ice cream.
2. River Valley Coffee Co., 350 St. Peter St. This small lunch counter is on the first floor of the Lowry Building, across from City Hall, in a space that sat empty after Aroma's Pizza closed in 2020.
3. Meritage Underground, 408 St. Peter St. Meritage took over the former Artists' Quarter jazz space, most recently KJ's Hideaway, and opened there in August 2026. The basement Pearl Speakeasy runs on Friday nights with a short menu of spreads, charcuterie, Prohibition Pudding and oysters. Wine tastings are planned for Wednesdays.
4. HepCat Coffee, Osborn370. HepCat is next to Wabasha Park. Owner Terry John Zila held a grand reopening in January after a remodel that turned the service counter toward the lobby seating and made the cafe five times bigger.
5. Forever Young Vintage, Seventh and Wabasha. Jose and Isaac Garcia opened this shop in the Wells Fargo building this past spring. It sells retro clothing, home decor, video games and collectibles. The brothers told the Pioneer Press that its purple felt pool table once belonged to Prince.
6. Joey Mansion, 444 Wacouta St. Brad Ireland and Cicely Davis-Ireland run this Lowertown vintage furniture and antiques shop, laid out like a two-room museum. It carries everything from old postcards to big sculptural pieces.
7. Galvan Foods and Tortilleria, 308 Prince St. The former Black Dog Cafe corner is now an indoor farmers' market, small grocery and deli built around handmade tortillas. It's open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, a few blocks from Union Depot.

Lucy Daisy Floral, on the third floor of the Gilbert Building at 413 Wacouta St., takes floral orders and teaches classes that include Ikebana and bouquet-making. That's useful if you're hosting this month.

Groceries are a separate errand, and this year they're simpler. Aldi opened on September 24 at 115 E. 10th St., at Robert Street, in the former Lunds & Byerlys space. Lunds closed there in March 2025, which left downtown without a major grocery store for about a year and a half.

Skating Moves to the Roof

Rice Park is not on the City of Saint Paul's 2026–27 list of outdoor rinks. The "Palace" rink on that list is at Palace Community Center, 781 Palace Ave., well outside downtown. It has no connection to the Palace Theatre.

The closest skating to Wabasha Park is a short walk up the same street. TRIA Rink, the Minnesota Wild's practice facility, sits on the roof of Treasure Island Center. It holds public open-skate sessions. Admission is $7 plus tax, and skate rental is another $7 plus tax. Check TRIA's open-skate page for session times.

December Fills In the Middle

Amsterdam Bar & Hall at 6 W. 6th St. faces the park and has the block's holiday shows. "CHILL: The Entire Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack, Played Live & Danced" has five performances from December 4 to 6, and Merry Krampus is on December 11. Both are listed on Amsterdam's event calendar. The first night of CHILL lands on the second weekend of the Christmas Market. So on the evening of December 4, you can start at the Rice Park tree, catch a show on Wabasha and end at the market on Kellogg Boulevard.

The next night, Saturday, December 5, Union Depot holds its free Holiday Tree Lighting and Movie Night. The evening includes a Winter Carnival button reveal, holiday entertainment, the tree lighting and a movie, and Union Depot's holiday page posts the schedule. The Winter Carnival runs January 28 to February 7, 2027. On the first two weekends of December, the Depot also runs North Pole Express train rides with Santa and elves. On December 12, its bake sale brings in 45 local bakeries and food vendors.

The Rice Park tree and the Union Depot tree are both on the same evening walk, and Wabasha Park sits about halfway between them.

If you own a condo near any stop on this route and want to talk through how this year's changes on Wabasha fit with your plans, Smitten Real Estate Group is glad to talk it over, whether over coffee at HepCat or wherever is easiest for you. Let's Connect.