Here are a few items from your blogger's email box. . .

Bloomberg/Business Week magazine recently came out with its Top 50 Cities ranking. Your blogger, a St. Paulite, was secretly rooting for the smaller twin of the Twin Cities, but remains ever-skeptical of these various rankings that come out several times a year.

When she clicked on No. 12 — Minneapolis — she thought the gig for her home city was up. (Oddly, the magazine touts City Center as the Mill's City's center for shopping.) But two more clicks found that St. Paul is No. 10 in the nation! The writer claims the city is "cleaner and safer." Hmm.

Financial services provider Waddell & Reed leased 5,005 square feet of class A office space on the skyway level of Securian Financial Group's 400 Building at the corner of Sixth Street and Robert St. N. in downtown St. Paul. The firm moved in Oct. 1. The deal was brokered by McGough Properties LLC of Roseville for Securian and Copaken Brooks LLC of Kansas City for Waddell & Reed. The St. Paul move consolidates two smaller offices in the Northeast metro. W&R currently has 60 financial advisers and more than 20,000 clients in the Twin Cities.

More art is needed! The Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority is searching for additional artists to apply for public art commissions at the historic Union Depot train station in downtown St. Paul. Art is needed for the waiting room — a series of six murals in the 300-foot room. Total budget: $150,000. In addition, applications and design concepts for smaller-scale artwork are needed, as well. That is, "functional elements of the transportation hub," as the RCRRA puts it. Up to 10 finalists will be invited to develop and sumite a "more refined design proposal for their small-scale artwork." The budget: $50,000.

In August, RCRRA approved contracts with four artist teams totalling $1.05 million. Eighty percent (or $1 million) of the public art budget is provided by the Federal Transit Administration.

The Depot's renovation should be completed by the end of this year. For more information: http://bit.ly/uniondepotmorepublicart.

CBRE Capital Markets said recently that is has arranged the sale and acquisition financing for Parkway Apartments, a 375-unit property in Eden Prairie. The buyer, an affiliate of Trilogy Real Estate Group, acquired the property in July for about $41.5 million. CBRE Capital markets secured a loan for more than $30 million for Trilogy.

Janet Moore covers commercial real estate for the Star Tribune.