Once the site of the former Orpheum Theatre and later a state bank, this triangular park was envisioned by the St. Paul Riverfront Corporation in the late 1990s as a key connector park between central downtown St. Paul and the Mississippi River (only a few blocks away) through neighboring Rice Park. The half-acre park features bronze statues of the Peanuts characters, an homage to cartoonist Charles Schulz, who was born in St. Paul. The popular statues sit atop grassy knolls and along the park’s seating walls, along with interpretive plaques embedded in the tops of the seat walls. Crossed by flagstone and brick walking paths that connect its corners, the park contains an ephemeral streambed” of local stones oriented toward the Mississippi that provides an outlet for storm water on the plaza. Beds of native plantings edge the stones. The work was led by Barry Warner of SRF Consulting’s Urban Design and Landscape Architecture Group.
Market Street on the park’s west edge was reconfigured as a convertible street, closed when needed to make a larger space for events. For many years, the site hosted the WinterSkate Ice Rink, with the Chateauesque turrets of the historic Landmark Center forming an impressive backdrop on the western side of Market Street.
The park was conveyed by the St. Paul Riverfront Corporation to the City of St. Paul as a public park in 2018. It is listed as a non-contributing site within the proposed Rice Park Historic District due to its high visibility from Rice Park.
