St. Paul Port Authority director Louis Jambois retires after raising agency's profile

Years of economic development work are documented in kitsch around Louis Jambois' office — commemorative plaques, baseballs from the St. Paul Saints, a Ramsey County hard hat.

The detritus of his time at the helm of the St. Paul Port Authority will be cleaned out when he retires Monday. But the former Macy's building, visible from his desk if he peers to the left, will remain — one of many challenging projects his successor, Lee Krueger, will inherit.

Jambois, 63, departs as the Port Authority is in the midst of turning what was once Macy's into a mix of office and commercial space with a skating rink on the roof. The agency is also helping negotiate the ground lease for the planned Minnesota United soccer stadium in the Midway neighborhood. And it is involved with the Ford Site redevelopment and overhauling the 3M campus on St. Paul's East Side.

The Port Authority's role in St. Paul has shifted dramatically since its creation in 1932, from harbor management to the city's go-to redevelopment partner. Local leaders said Jambois has played a critical role over the past seven years in broadening the authority's scope and increasing its prominence.

Before Jambois, the agency's reputation was "landlordish," St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce President Matt Kramer said. "Louie changed it to the role of the Port Authority is to recruit businesses, to build an extraordinarily competent workforce … and to just be an advocate."

One advocacy area where the authority's staff need to be "evangelical" is ensuring the city balances the increased demand for new urbanist, mixed-use development with industrial projects that buoy the tax base and pay decent salaries, Jambois said.

As for the riverfront, where the agency's work started, Jambois said much of what was formerly the Port Authority's property has been turned into parkland.

Kramer is one of many people — including Krueger, who was previously in charge of real estate and development at the Port Authority — who said they consider Jambois a mentor.

Before leading the agency, Jambois ran the advocacy organization Metro Cities and spent 30 years with what is now the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

At DEED, he hired Meredith Udoibok, now the department's director of community finance. She was 23 when Jambois hired her, Udoibok said, and over the decade she worked with him, he molded her professionally. She still calls him when she faces a particularly complicated problem.

"He's really able to sit down and take everybody's concerns and put them into one concise issue. And everybody goes, 'Yeah, You're right.' And he'll say, 'OK, based on that, here's what we need to do,' " she said. "He was a master of meetings and just helping problem solve."

When Jambois left DEED, Udoibok said staff made rubber bands imprinted with "WWLD" — What Would Louie Do?

"Reinvestment doesn't just happen. People have to make it happen," he said. "Our work has been a catalyst to this coming-back-to-the-urban-core movement and we need to continue to do that."

Krueger will face different challenges, Jambois said, because those big sites of "decay and disinvestment" — like the former Ford Plant and 3M campus and Metro Transit's bus barn property by Snelling and Midway — will be disappearing in St. Paul as they undergo redevelopment. The next hurdle will be piecing together smaller properties for industrial use, Jambois said.

As Jambois contemplated the serious challenges facing St. Paul during his last full week at his office — which, in addition to the kitsch, overflowed with documents, newspaper clippings and notepads — he sipped from a mug with the Port Authority's emblem and the phrase: "We do not suck!"

That mantra, which he once said when questioned about the Port Authority's capability, has reached a level of local notoriety — but co-workers said it's is just one of many goofy phrases they associate with Jambois, who never takes himself seriously.

Udoibok acknowledged Jambois is leaving the Port Authority as St. Paul is juggling many critical projects.

Jessie Van Berkel • 612-673-4649