From different backgrounds, pair launched first skyways As the pandemic casts doubt about workaday downtowns, it s fitting to flash back to this pair of downtown boosters.
By Curt Brown Special to the Star Tribune March 13, 2021 1:20pm Text size Copy shortlink:
They were born nearly 25 years and 400 miles apart in different pockets of the Midwest. But when Leslie Park and Edward Baker came together in Minneapolis more than 60 years ago, they changed the face of downtown creating the city s first skyways.
The son of a general store merchant, Park was born in 1901 in Balsam Lake, a northwestern Wisconsin town of a few hundred. Baker was born in 1926 in bustling Chicago, the son of a Russian-born Jewish traveling salesman.
Reschke Secures Refinance For Downtown Hotel, Which Now Has Time To Recover Residence Inn, 11 South LaSalle St.
In spite of the tumultuous times facing downtown hotels, the owner of the Residence Inn Chicago Downtown/Loop secured $141M of new senior and mezzanine loan financing for the hotel.
The deal will allow the 381-key hotel at 11 South LaSalle St. to get past the COVID-19 crisis, which left many downtown hotels nearly empty as conventions were canceled and other business and leisure travel dried up, according to The Prime Group CEO Michael Reschke.
“This new financing was structured to give time for the hotel to fully recover over the next two years, a time period we conservatively estimate may be required before the pandemic is eradicated and the hospitality industry fully recovers,” he said in a statement. “However, we remain confident that with the wide dissemination of two vaccines, the hospitality market will begin a