Throughout the Palace Theatre’s first year in business, plenty of fans have stopped former St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to chat about the onetime vaudeville house that’s been transformed into a music venue.

“My favorite story is this guy I ran into at a store,” Coleman said. “He told me he loved the Palace Theatre. I said, ‘Oh, so you’re a big music fan?’ His response: ‘No, I’m a cabdriver.’ I love that. He could care less about the music, it’s been good for his business.”

Located on West Seventh Place off Wabasha Street, the Palace has attracted a lot of people who do care about music. In its first 12 months, the venue has hosted 65 shows, 37 of which sold out. Eight acts have played two consecutive nights and Americana favorites Wilco headlined three high-profile, sold-out concerts in a row, their final gigs before taking an extended hiatus. A total of 110,856 people attended shows in the Palace’s first year, a number that doesn’t include Saturday’s Glen Hansard performance.

Those numbers more than exceeded general manager Nate Kranz’s expectations. “We came out of the gates stronger than we could have hoped. We thought getting anything more than 40 shows in the first year would be great. (This many concerts) was our goal for year three. There’s a sense of relief and accomplishment because we worked so hard and put so much money into it, but we didn’t know how everyone else was going to see it.”

Despite some early problems with traffic flow and sound, the Palace Theatre’s first year has run smoothly, Kranz said, and it’s a hit with both fans and musicians.

“I love it. It’s a very positive space for St. Paul,” said Yvette Brockman of Bloomington, who caught 11 concerts during the Palace’s first year. “I’ve taken two of of my children, my husband, my friends and they all thought it was a really unique place and they had great things to say about it.”

FROM VAUDEVILLE TO THE JAYHAWKS

Renovating the Palace Theatre was one of Coleman’s pet projects as mayor and something he had talked about for years. In 2015, the city bought the space — which hadn’t been in regular use since 1977 — and spent nearly $16 million and more than a year rehabbing it. They chose not to fully renovate, but to stabilize what was already there, leaving plenty of exposed brick and other rough edges.

“I definitely like the design choice of leaving distressed bits in there,” said Derek Johnson of Plymouth, who has attended 15 shows at the theater. “For me, music is about the feeling you get and part of that feeling comes from the environment around you. It’s one reason I love First Avenue so much. There’s an element to the environment that seems to step up everyone’s game.”

“Those rough edges give it so much more character,” Brockman said. “It so much warmer than a sterile new space.”

The Palace is being operated in a 50-50 partnership between First Avenue and Chicago-based JAM Productions. The two companies have spent nearly two decades working together, booking larger shows in venues across the Twin Cities, from the State and Orpheum theaters in Minneapolis to Xcel Energy Center and Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul.

Although its official capacity is 2,800, Kranz said they keep shows capped at around 2,500, a number similar to the State and Orpheum theaters in downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota’s Northrop Auditorium. What sets the Palace apart is that it has both a seated balcony and a general-admission main floor, which allows for a more club-like atmosphere.

“It feels like it fills a niche for a venue of its size,” said Johnson.

THE LEARNING CURVE

Both Kranz and Coleman admitted — and Brockman and Johnson confirmed — the Palace’s major issues were getting crowds into the venue efficiently and giving them ideal sound once they were inside.

“Like anything else, there was a learning curve to getting the lines in as quickly as possible and figuring out the flow of crowds,” said Kranz.

Through trial and error, the staff made tweaks that sped things up.

“When they first opened, it took a lot of patience,” Brockman said. “You had, like, six (staffers) you had to stop and see before you got into the venue. But once they gained some momentum, the transitions became much more smooth.”

As far as the sound goes, the Palace rented systems for the first five months, with some shows sounding better than others. Engineers spent the month of August installing permanent, high-end sound equipment, which came from the French company L-Acoustics. Kranz said many bands use the brand themselves and are happy to work with a system they know well.

“We’re still tweaking things,” he added. “There are little weird corners we realized needed acoustic treatments. We’ve made a lot of upgrades.”

Brockman certainly noticed the difference. “I think they found the perfect balance as to how sound generates in that building,” she said. “I’ve been up in the rafters at the top, down in front at the barrier and at the middle rail of the floor. The acoustics in there are amazing.”

THE MUSICAL MIX

Many of the Palace’s shows have been 89.3 The Current favorites — Fleet Foxes, Ryan Adams, the War on Drugs — that previously would sell out a pair of nights at First Avenue or fill the State or Orpheum. But the venue has also booked R&B and hip-hop (Miguel, Macklemore), jam bands (Umphrey’s McGee, the String Cheese Incident), local acts (Hippo Campus, Doomtree) and more mainstream-leaning rock (Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin).

“We’re not trying to program the Palace, we’ve never tried to be a niche promoter,” Kranz said. “You can expect to continue to see a wide array of different artists, anything we think will work in the room.”

Staff successfully tested a fully seated show for Chris Thile’s “A Prairie Home Companion” in October and will use the same setup for four sold-out performances of a collaboration between TU Dance and Bon Iver on April 19-21. The space has also been used for various community events, meetings, luncheons and tours. Kranz said he plans to further expand the space’s availability for local nonprofits now that the permanent sound system is in place.

“We’re going to continue to play around with scaling, different formats and other types of entertainment and uses,” he added.

Kranz also expects to see more bands choosing to film their performances. Spoon’s management was so impressed with the space, they recorded a show there in September. In November, the Current broadcast one of Wilco’s concerts live on the air, something Kranz said is likely to happen again in the future.

IMPACT ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The arrival of the Palace has been welcome news for businesses in the neighborhood. “It’s created a vitality in a part of town that hadn’t seen it,” Coleman said. “I was at a show there in August, and afterward, the streets were crowded with people. It was midnight and people are supposed to be in bed, not in downtown St. Paul. I think it’s going to continue to grow and be a catalyst for more things happening downtown.”

Russell Klein, owner and chef of the nearby restaurant Meritage, loves the place. “It’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s bringing in a completely different demographic and a new dynamic to the neighborhood. We’re getting packed with younger people. I think the Palace has been a tremendous success and a fantastic investment for St. Paul.”

The Palace’s impact goes beyond filling restaurant seats. Scott Burns, co-founder of tech companies GovDelivery and Structural, said the Palace helps beef up the city’s appeal. “The Palace has attracted some of the best acts around to downtown St Paul,” he said. “That success has brought a new level of attention to our nightlife and arts scene and has made it easier to recruit employees and new companies to downtown.”

“I spent 20 years trying to get the Palace open,” said Coleman, who played guitar with the Jayhawks on stage during opening weekend last March. “It wasn’t just that I loved music and music venues. The Palace, CHS Field, the soccer stadium — those are the things that make a city successful.”

THE FUTURE OF THE PALACE

Brockman has enjoyed watching the Palace flourish. “It’s been constantly improving,” she said. “The artists are bigger names, they’re adding more second shows and they’re selling out quicker.”

The Palace’s spring calendar includes two-night stands from indie rockers the Decemberists (April 6-7), Minnesota bluegrass band Trampled by Turtles (May 4-5) and pop trio Haim with rapper Lizzo (May 14-15).

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Cairo choir sends musical message of hope amid virus gloom First Avenue has also taken over the bar Wild Tymes next door and is remodeling it into a to-be-named space that will serve a similar purpose as the Depot Tavern, which opened next to First Avenue in 2010. It’ll offer food and drinks and serve as a ticket outlet for the Palace.

A construction crew has gutted the interior and Kranz is now finalizing the design and getting ready to take construction bids with an eye toward opening in late summer. “It’ll run somewhat as an extension of the theater, but it’ll be open all the time,” he said.

Coleman has high hopes for the Palace’s future. “I just couldn’t be more excited about it,” he said. “What an unabashedly successful first year. It fulfilled every hope and dream I had for the place.”