Looks like the condo of today is becoming the office of tomorrow.

The housing slump is prompting a lot of that kind of morphing in St. Paul. If housing developers aren't delaying their projects altogether, they often are turning their empty condos into apartments or reconfiguring condo plans into space for offices or shops, according to a look at nearly four dozen sites in St. Paul.

And now that so many developers are combining housing with shopping, entertainment and even hotels — the so-called "mixed-use development" — it's tough to find many housing-only projects.

What's not hurt by the slump is hospital expansion.

Four in the city are booming, with projects totaling more than $370 million. "They are the largest single investment by far of any industry. It's huge," said city project manager Martin Schieckel.

  • 1 Regions Hospital: It's the largest ongoing construction project in St. Paul, hospital officials boast. The 11-story, $179 million expansion is about halfway done, and most of its components are expected to be complete in October 2009. New stuff in includes an upgraded emergency center with nearly twice the space of the current one, 20 operating rooms, 108 new private patient rooms, improved mental health facilities and two levels of underground parking.

  • 2 United Hospital: Having outgrown its emergency room, last month United broke ground on a six-story, $24 million emergency room facility. Its first floor will have exam, holding and mental-health service rooms, and its second floor will house a birth center. Children's Hospital will use the third- through fifth-floors for patient rooms, and the sixth will be held for future expansion. The project should finish in 2010. In a separate $4.5 million expansion, United is creating state-of-the-art general and orthopedic operating rooms, and is drawing up designs for it late this year.

  • 3 Children's Hospital: In addition to its expansion into the United
    tower, Children's broke ground last week on another major expansion. It will include enlarged rooms so parents can stay around-the-clock with their children; a renovated and expanded emergency room facility; larger, more high-tech operating rooms; and a new entrance. Children's will relocate its pediatric epilepsy unit, which is currently in a United Hospital building, back to the Children's campus, and then expand it. The cost of the expansion and occupation of part of the United tower is $75 million. Work should finish in 2011. constructed from recycled materials.