Friends of the St. Paul Skyway
crafting action plan

Friends of the St. Paul Skyway crafting action plan
By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | May 2026

Amidst concerns that the City of St. Paul is shifting its focus away from the skyways, a new group recently formed to advocate for residents’ desires for the system. Friends of the St. Paul Skyway has already attracted more than 275 members eager to revitalize life in the system and ensure it isn’t being swept under the rug during the city’s effort to promote street level revitalization.

Its first step was a survey that garnered hundreds of responses. Results are expected to be released May 5 and an action plan will be created shortly after.

Based on conversations with other downtowners, the group’s leaders say restoring the skyways has been top priority among residents in recent years, right behind getting a new downtown grocery store – Lunds & Byerly’s closed more than a year ago and Aldi is expected to open this summer in its former space. Aside from being convenient to use, many people with mobility challenges rely on the skyways to safely travel throughout the city.

“Half of what goes on in the skyway is people meeting each other,” said spokesperson Bill Hanley, who co-founded the group with Nancy Kehmeier. “It’s like a main street in terms of that kind of interaction but the beauty is it’s 12 months a year and it’s not dependent on the weather. I never would have dreamed that it would function that way until I moved here.” A Downtown Alliance survey earlier this year found that the majority of downtown residents consider the skyways essential while the majority of downtown workers call them simply a significant convenience.

Hanley worked as senior manager at Twin Cities PBS for 25 years before he and his wife moved to Lowertown a decade ago, enticed by a view over Mears Park. He has also been a member of the CapitolRiver Council’s Skyway Governance Advisory Committee for 10 years, is on the board of the Downtown Alliance’s Downtown Improvement District and has become known as the leader of an informal “active residents” group, using his deep connections and knowledge of the city to help people bring their ideas for city improvements to life.

“The thing that surprised me was how different the residential experience downtown is from the worker experience,” said Hanley. “I thought I really knew what living downtown would be like and it was stunning to me how different it was. There are so many people who haven’t just chosen to live here but really aggressively adore living here. I look down on Mears Park and I see all the people who are putting their own time and money into all the gardens. There’s a ton of different things where residents put their own time and dollars.”

Interviews in recent months with residents and city leaders have indeed hinted at strife between revitalizing the skyways versus street-level storefronts. The St. Paul Downtown Alliance’s 2023 downtown reinvestment plan laid out a goal to add 20,000 residents to its already 10,000-plus residents; add 20,000 workers (now around 55,000); and increase the number of annual visitors by 20%. Several office buildings have already been converted into new apartment buildings, such as the recently opened Landmark Towers and Stella, and the St. Paul Downtown Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the Alliance, is in the process of converting and acquiring several others. Another effort to boost downtown is a proposed $600 million upgrade to the Grand Casino Arena, St. Paul RiverCentre and Roy Wilkins Auditorium.

Hanley believes the skyways and street-level don’t need to compete, especially if the city’s plans to increase density pan out. In fact, the skyways have been a main reason many people have been attracted to move downtown, he said.
“Downtown leaders have put everything they have on increasing the density in downtown,” said Hanley. “If you’re successful…you won’t have a density problem in either the skyway or the street.”

Preliminary ideas that the group has for improving the system include advocating for the swift reopening of crucial connections, educating people how to use the police intercoms installed throughout the system, volunteering for events such as the Skyway 5K, which recently drew more than 900 runners, and introducing an “adopt a skyway” program with volunteers helping to keep a segment of the skyway clean. The group recently launched an interactive map showing real-time skyway closures and providing GPS routes, created by group member and independent software developer Jacob Ramos and accessible at spskyway.com. It should be noted that the City’s Department of Safety and Inspections is currently working to improve signage in the skyways, and the Downtown Alliance’s street ambassadors have been helping clean and keep a watchful eye on the system in recent years.

“The Skyway Governance Advisory Committee is meant to represent all the stakeholders: building owners, business owners, residents and visitors,” said Hanley. “I think there’s certainly less of a focus on residents in that group and it’s got rules and some limitations as to what it can do. I think it’s got real benefits when it comes to specific skyway closures. Like, when Madison Equities was up and operating, they would try to close their skyways about every other month, and we’d have to vote it down.”

Crime, skyway bridge closures and uncleanliness began plaguing the system a few years before the pandemic, Hanley said, and it suffered a critical blow when the Madison Equities portfolio collapsed following the death of principal owner Jim Crockarell in 2021. That forced the closure of several segments, including the one in the Alliance Bank building which is a key connector for a swath of western segments to the rest of the system.

“Things were horrible for a couple of years before COVID, and then during COVID,” said Hanley, noting that he has walked a vast majority of the system every morning for more than a decade. “It was no question it was bad. It was not clean. It did not feel safe. There was a period [of time] I stopped carrying my wallet when I would walk but for the last four years it’s been fine. We still have the mythology, so people talk about it being dangerous, filthy, horrible and scary but it isn’t. Now, granted, I’m not out there a lot at night.”

Hanley’s first stab at grassroots activism began during the pandemic when blood drives downtown came to a screeching halt. He connected with a longtime Red Cross blood drive executive manager to schedule one for downtown.

“We first started talking about it in March and we did one in April,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing that the Skyway Governance Advisory Committee is not great at, doing things quickly.” They’ve continued organizing the monthly Skyway Blood Drive the third Thursday of each month at Union Depot ever since. It’s operated entirely by volunteers and the next will be held May 21.

The Friends of the Skyway group regularly shows up at Downtown Action Series meetings hosted by St. Paul City Council president and Ward 2 representative Rebecca Noecker. The next one is 4:30-6 p.m., Thursday, June 18 at Union Depot. For more information or to get involved with the skyway group, visit skywayfriends.org.

The 5-mile skyway system, which dates to 1967, now spans 47 buildings. In its heyday the bustling system featured connections to retail stores like Dayton’s (later Macy’s), a movie theater in Galtier Plaza (today’s Cray Plaza) and other hubs like the Town Square atrium, which touted ample gathering space and indoor gardens before closing to the public in 2000. It’s estimated the atrium needs about $10 million in repairs to restore the glass and other mechanical systems, Hanley said.

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