The scenery includes parking lots and vacant land just steps from the Mississippi River. To Trooien, who owns much of the acreage, those empty parcels were the property that would redefine downtown St. Paul.
At the height of the real estate boom, Trooien proposed the highly publicized Bridges of St. Paul project — a massive European-style collection of shops, a hotel and entertainment venues just across the Robert Street Bridge from downtown.
The stakes were high for Trooien when St. Paul City Council shot down his $1.5 billion plan in 2007. But that defeat amounts to a blip compared with what he stands to lose now in bankruptcy court — which is essentially everything he owns.