Along the Green Line in downtown St. Paul, the block-length Lowertown office building that houses the Great Hall banquet center and was once home to Gander Outdoors is under new ownership.

New York City-based Gamma Real Estate purchased 180 E. Fifth St. out of receivership on Dec. 28 after a former owner, Minneapolis-based Talon Real Estate Investment Trust, defaulted on the mortgage.

The 14-story building was built in 1916 by Great Northern Railway magnate James J. Hill and offers more than 600,000 square feet of commercial and office space.

The building was designed by Charles S. Frost, the designer of the nearby Union Depot, to accommodate the offices of the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific Railroad and the First National Bank.

Located near Mears Park, it is home to the two-story, 500-person capacity Great Hall banquet center and the 267-seat Jerome Hill Theater.

The last weddings were held in 2018.

“Instead of being an event center, the Great Hall will be transformed into a really cool tenant lobby,” said Julie Bauch, of Bauch Enterprises, which manages and leases the building. With two notable exceptions, “the tenant mix has stayed pretty stable.”

The two largest tenants are the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and HealthPartners. Cray, a supercomputer company, relocated offices to Bloomington in 2017 and Gander Outdoors left in 2018 after filing bankruptcy.

“I think that we will be able to replace those tenants in 2019,” Bauch said.

Jonathan Kalikow, president of Gamma Real Estate, said in a statement that the company’s “longer-term plan … will bring new energy to this property” and “connect its future to its rich history by updating it and adding new amenities that will make this a premiere place for people to work and do business in St. Paul.”