An appraiser working two comps four blocks apart in Highland Park this year could turn in numbers that look like they belong to different cities. One reference point: a 1920s bungalow on a quiet side street that closed near the neighborhood's $450,000 median in January 2026. The other: a three-bedroom rowhome inside Highland Bridge, built this year, carrying a median list price of $697,990 as of early August 2026. Same zip code. Same walk to the Ford Parkway shops. Same proximity to the river. Very different math.
That gap is not a fluke of two unrelated listings. It is the visible edge of a supply story that started with a city ordinance in 2022, sat frozen for roughly three years, and only started moving again in 2025. If you are shopping Highland Park, or trying to price a listing anywhere near the old Ford plant site, understanding why the gap exists matters more than the gap itself.
The neighborhood is now selling two different products
Highland Park's resale stock is mostly pre-1960s: bungalows, Tudors, Cape Cods on established lots, the kind of housing stock that built St. Paul's reputation for more square footage per dollar than comparable Minneapolis neighborhoods. Highland Bridge, built on the 135-acre former Ford assembly plant site, is the opposite: rowhomes, custom river-lot builds, and apartments constructed to LEED green building standards, all delivered new in the last few years.
Here is what that split looks like in current numbers:
| Existing Highland Park homes | New Highland Bridge construction | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical price | $450,000 median sale price (January 2026) | $697,990 median list price for active Pulte rowhomes (August 2026) |
| Average value | $469,536 average home value, per Zillow's index (updated late June 2026, up 3.5% year over year) | Custom river lots alone: $475,000 to $1.15 million; total build cost projected between $1.3 million and $3 million |
| Typical product | 1920s to 1950s bungalows, Tudors, Cape Cods | 3-bed, 2.5-bath rowhomes, 1,981 to 2,373 square feet, built 2026 |
| Time to sell | 28 days on market (January 2026); homes go pending in about 14 days per Zillow's more recent read | 58 days average on market across the nine active Highland Bridge listings tracked as of August 1, 2026 |
Read that last row again. New construction is sitting on the market twice as long as resale, despite fresher finishes and a walkable park corridor at the doorstep. That is not what you would expect if buyers were simply chasing new-construction premiums. It reads instead like the top of Highland Bridge's price tier has outrun current buyer demand at that price point, which is exactly the kind of friction a comp-dependent appraisal can trip over.
Why the new supply showed up in 2026, not 2021
Ryan Companies bought the Ford site in December 2019 and started work on Highland Bridge soon after. Lot sales for custom homes along Mississippi River Boulevard launched not long after that, priced from $475,000. By any normal development timeline, Highland Bridge should have been substantially built out years ago.
It wasn't, because in 2022 St. Paul activated a rent control ordinance capping annual rent increases at 3 percent for most residential units. That single policy detail did more to slow Highland Bridge than any supply chain issue or interest rate move. Ryan Companies development manager Sean Ryan told Twin Cities Business Magazine the project's economics had stopped working, put simply:
"We either need to raise rents or we need to buy the land for less."
The math didn't pencil for new apartment buildings inside a rent-capped city, so the money went elsewhere. St. Paul later carved out an exemption for buildings constructed after 2004, which helped, but it took a separate and more direct intervention to actually get Highland Bridge moving again.
The agreement that restarted the project
On May 15, 2025, the City of Saint Paul amended select developer agreements tied to Highland Bridge, clearing the way for builders to resume residential and commercial work that had stalled. The amendment obligates developers to build 447 new housing units across three multifamily buildings, plus four new commercial buildings totaling 36,500 square feet. The city also adjusted minimum assessed values on 15 of the development's 44 parcels, a tax-increment financing move expected to raise the total assessed value of those parcels by roughly 20 percent by the time the TIF district expires, without changing the city's overall TIF budget or the base tax payments already being collected.
Mayor Carter framed it as unlocking stalled momentum: "This agreement paves the way for hundreds of new homes and helps move our whole city forward." Within weeks, Ryan Companies broke ground on the Gateway Project, a market-rate apartment building it will own directly. A separate 97-unit apartment building inside Highland Bridge's second phase also broke ground that summer and is slated to finish by late 2026, arriving alongside new ground-floor retail next to the Lunds & Byerly's grocery store that anchors the development's northeast corner.
None of that construction has fully delivered yet. The nine Pulte rowhomes on the market this August and the custom river lots being marketed by Coldwell Banker Realty's Crocus Hill office are the leading edge of a much larger wave still working through the pipeline.
What this means if you're comparing homes here
If you are house hunting in Highland Park and cross-shopping a resale bungalow against a new Highland Bridge rowhome, the comp pools genuinely do not overlap. An offer written above list on a new-construction rowhome, based on the assumption that "Highland Park homes are appreciating fast," risks running into an appraisal that leans on the resale comps four blocks away, where the median is still closer to $450,000 than $700,000. Know which comp set your lender's appraiser is likely to pull before you get aggressive on price.
If you own an older home near the construction zone and are weighing whether to list now or wait, the calculus cuts both ways. Ongoing construction noise and a changing streetscape can be a drag on showings in the short term. But 447 more units and new retail arriving over the next several years also means more rooftops, more foot traffic to Ford Parkway businesses, and a stronger case that the neighborhood's ceiling price is being reset from the top, which can lift perceived value on the homes nearby even if it doesn't show up in this month's comps.
And if you are drawn specifically to Highland Bridge, know that the 34 custom lots along Mississippi River Boulevard, priced from $475,000 to $1.15 million for land alone, drew more than 1,000 inquiries when the first release went to market, a level of demand that tells you these lots move fast when they're available. Land in that stretch is not a commodity you can count on finding twice.
A few questions worth asking before you write an offer
Will the 447 additional units coming to Highland Bridge push resale prices down elsewhere in Highland Park? Nothing in the current pipeline suggests that. The new units are a different product at a different price point serving a different buyer, and Highland Park's resale market has moved independently of Highland Bridge's timeline for years. The more relevant question is what it does to the neighborhood's overall price ceiling and how appraisers treat comps as the two tiers sit closer together on the map.
Are Highland Bridge's custom river lots still available? As of the most recent releases, a portion of the 34 lots along Mississippi River Boulevard remain in play, with Coldwell Banker Realty's Crocus Hill office managing sales. Given the volume of inquiries the first release drew, timing matters more than usual here.
Is 58 days on market a lot for new construction in this price range? It's longer than the resale market's current pace of 14 to 28 days, and worth factoring into any pricing conversation if you're comparing a new listing to what a similar home sold for six months ago.
If you're weighing a purchase or a listing anywhere near this stretch of St. Paul, the comp math is more complicated than a single median price suggests. Rathmanner Real Estate Team tracks both sides of the Highland Park and Highland Bridge market and can walk you through what your specific address is actually worth right now. Get a free home valuation to see where you stand before you price a listing or write an offer.
