University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis Campus)

I was walking back to my hotel after visiting Minneapolis College and the route I took had me beeline my way to the Minneapolis campus of St. Thomas University. If you are familiar with the university, you know its main campus is a few miles away across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. Given the time, I would have loved to make my way over there, but as is always the case time was not something I had in abundance. None the less, I was pleased to be able to see the Minneapolis campus. These days, it is not uncommon for universities to have satellite campuses, particularly in nearby communities or the downtowns of major cities in the same state. Often, these are “centers” which are located in rented facilities. Even when such centers are in university-owned buildings, the locations are typically just classroom spaces with a few faculty and administrative offices, not full-fledged spaces as you would find on campus. In St. Thomas’ case, the campus is owned by the university, the facilities carry the same architectural themes as the main campus, and entire colleges/schools are located on the campus. Although not unique, this kind of thing is not the standard. 

The university’s roots go back to 1885. John Ireland, the Archbishop of the then-named Diocese of St. Paul, wanted to establish a Catholic seminary in response to the growing number of immigrants arriving in the area. Ireland was a highly influential person in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and the region. His background is better left to another post where I can dive more into his work getting the university started. Perhaps if I can get back to the area and visit the main campus in St. Paul, I can dedicate more time to him. You can look him up in the meantime. In addition to the university, he was instrumental in getting two massive cathedrals constructed in St. Paul and Minneapolis respectively.  An existing Catholic Industrial School was chosen as the site for the new institution and subsequently renovated for that purpose. The new institution was to be a seminary, high school, and college. It opened its doors to students on September 8, 1885, as the St. Thomas Seminary. Over time, the institution spun off the high school and seminary, became the College of St. Thomas, and finally the University of St. Thomas in 1990.

St. Thomas began offering classes in Minneapolis in 1987. At the time, they rented space in the former Powers Department Store building at 5th Street and Marquette Avenue. The location was a success and quickly gained steam. So much so that the university moved quickly to establish a permanent location in downtown.  

The photos that follow have the buildings in order as I saw them walking back from Minneapolis College. The first building I came to was the School of Law Building. The building is the work of Opus Architects and Engineers, now called the Opus Group. The firm has experience in the design of academic buildings for a number of colleges and universities including the nearby University of Minnesota. They also designed Schulze Hall (see below) as well as McNeely Hall on the main campus in St. Paul. In all, the company designed and/or built nearly two dozen of St. Thomas’ buildings. Opus was founded by St. Thomas alumnus Gerald “Gerry” Rauenhorst (Class of 1948). After completing his studies in economics, he went to Marquette University where he completed a second bachelor’s degree in engineering. He worked for a few years before starting Rauenhorst Construction. It was a humble start, but the company would grow to be a juggernaut. Indeed, every building on St. Thomas’ Minneapolis campus was a work of Opus. The company changes its name to Opus in 1982. 

The Boston, MA based firm Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott served as consulting architects on the structure. The building has 152,000 square feet of space and is a one-stop shop for the law school. It houses all classrooms, faculty and administrative offices, student space, and the law library. Unfortunately, as it was Saturday, all of the buildings were closed so I was unable to take any photos of the inside. Total costs for the building came in at about $31 million (which is just over $55 million in today’s value). The School of Law Building sits on Harmon Place between 11th and 12th streets. The fountain and courtyard you see here sit to the east of the building. The university's sign sits on the corner of 11th and LaSalle Avenue beside a parking lot east of the courtyard. The fourth photo in this set is the building as viewed from the north side of 11th Street. The last photo is the building's corner stone on Harmon Place.

Directly across 11th Street from the School of Law Building is Schulze Hall, home to the ​eponymously named Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. The name is in honor of Richard and Sandra Schulze who donated $50 million to the university in 2000. Richard founded the retail giant Best Buy. A native of St. Paul, he began the company in 1966 with a single location and the name Sound of Music. Over time, the company grew, but when the chain hit nine stores a tragedy of sorts struck. A tornado basically levelled one of the locations. You may be wondering why I would describe a tornado destroying a building and its contents as a "tragedy of sorts". Afterwards, Schulze held a "tornado sale" at one of the other locations and it was so successful that he changed both the format and the name of his stores. From that point forward, the locations would all be much larger and carry the Best Buy name. Thus, for Schulze, the tragedy led to good fortune. Indeed, over time he would become a billionaire. In addition to donating to St. Thomas to create the School of Entrepreneurship, the Schulze has given $40 million to the University of Minnesota to support diabetes research, $49 million to the Mayo Clinic for a cancer research center, and millions more to other charities and causes across Minnesota. The building cost $22 million to construct, which equates to about $36.6 million in today’s value. It has 86,000 square feet of space across its four floors. Schulze's groundbreaking occurred on June 10, 2004 and it opened just over a year later in September 2005. A formal formally dedication was held on October 20, 2005. Several of the buildings on campus are known for their interior artwork, including what is described as some impressive frescos. I believe Schulze is one such building, but again I was their on a Saturday morning and was not able to enter any of the buildings to see.

​The first photo of this set is a view of the building from the south near the university's sign seen in the first set above, from across 11th Street. As you can see, the building has some gothic references although are not truly Gothic or Neo-Gothic in style. You can see an enclosed pedestrian bridge which crosses 11th Street connecting it with the School of Law Building. The building on the right in the first photo is Terrence Murphy Hall, home to the Opus College of Business. The second and third photos are closeups of the 11th Street side of the building. The fourth photo is a view of the building's west side on Harmon Place. The building is directly connected to Terrence Murphy as you can see in the fourth photo. This was taken looking north across a courtyard, called the called Terrence Murphy Courtyard. Inside the courtyard is the statue you see in the sixth photo. 

The statue is a piece called “The Entrepreneur” by artist Dean Kermit Allison. It is a fitting adornment by a business school building. According to Allison, the statue depicts the attempts by a self-made man to make something of himself. Note how the figure is literally chiseling himself out of the stone base, reflecting an entrepreneur’s work to create something. The hand holding the chisel has scars from errant hits from the hammer, denoting the mistakes he has made in the process. Yet he toils on to make something for himself. Interestingly, an earlier casting of the statue stands on the campus of another university. If you ever find yourself in Fayette, Iowa, take a stroll over to Upper Iowa University (UIU) and their Andres Center for Business & Education. There you will find the same statue standing on a large base of what I believe is granite. The piece was installed at UIU in 1988 and is dedicated to Theodore “Ted” Johnson. Johnson, who passed away in 2005, was a member of the UIU Board and a long-time supporter of the university. Monsignor Terrence Murphy was a long serving president of the university. I will detail him more below, but you can see a photo of him standing in the courtyard in 2000 here.​

The set below is of Terrence Murphy Hall. The building was the first to be constructed on the Minneapolis campus, and as such initially carried the name “Minneapolis Campus Building”. The building, which has some 150,000 square feet of space, opened in 1992. You can see of photos of the building under construction in 1992 here and here. Renamed in 2000 in honor of Monsignor Terrence Murphy, St. Thomas’ president from 1966 to 1991.  That is an extraordinarily long time to be a college president, even back then and even considering that the university is a private entity. I imagine people liked him, and undoubtedly respected him for his tenure in that role to be so long. For the most part, president's tended to stay in such roles longer in the past than they do today, but twenty-five years is a very long time. The building is the home to the Opus College of Business. I am fairly certain the name is in honor of Opus Architects and Engineers/the Opus Group and Gerry Rauenhorst. The building on the left in all of these photos is Schulze Hall.

Finally, the set below is of Opus Hall, home to the School of Education. It too is the work of Opus Architects and Engineers. There at least three other Opus Halls at colleges in the U.S. of which I am aware. The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC has a dorm that carries the name, as do residence halls at Creighton University in Nebraska and Saint Mary’s College in Indiana. Opus comes from the Latin Opus Dei, or the Work of God. A number of Catholic K-12 schools across the country have buildings which carry the Opus name as well. The building sits on the north side of 10th Street and is connected to the other buildings on campus via an elevated pedestrian walkway which connects with Terrence Murphy Hall. The first two photos are views of the south side of the building as you approach it along Harmon Place. The third photo shows more of the south façade along 10th Street. The last photo is the pedestrian bridge connection to Terrence Murphy Hall. An official groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 8, 1997. You can see photos of it under construction here and here. It was dedicated on September 23, 1999.

​Since the buildings were closed my time on the campus was short. As noted above, I would have loved the opportunity to see the frescos and the various things inside the buildings, but that was not in the cards for me on this visit. Despite its downtown location, there is still a campus feel as you walk around the place which is pretty remarkable given the limited number of buildings and the urban landscape. One thing did surprise me – I did not see a single university lamppost sign. Given their common appearance and the downtown location, I thought for sure there would be some around to demark the campus. None the less, it is a nice campus and I imagine it hums with activity when students are around.