Downtown Minneapolis Office Market

[Silophant]

Well, it's better news than the decampment to the suburbs that was rumored a couple years ago. Hard to say how much space they'd be taking, though - if they drop down to, like, 15k sq ft that's still pretty bad news.

[Tom H.]

I agree - I think we need to interpret all this news against the background assumption that overall office space consumption will decrease for the foreseeable future, so firms remaining downtown is positive news when that is the starting point. We really should be cheering for two things to happen simultaneously - for office space to be repurposed for other active uses, AND for displaced / downsizing firms to remain in the core.

[alexschief]

My assumption for a couple years has been that all office space was going to get hit, but that suburban office space was going to get creamed. So a major downtown anchor deciding to stick around despite a well-publicized flirtation with the suburbs, even if they reduce their overall square footage (which I think is inevitable), is in keeping with that theory.

[go4guy]

Top 4 floors of the office tower. I am not sure how much square footage that is, or how it compares to what they currently have.

[tedlanda2571]

Top 4 floors of the office tower. I am not sure how much square footage that is, or how it compares to what they currently have.

Article said they had 124,000 currently, and an old Hines release say 14 floors of office totaling 350k. 350/14 = 25k (not sure how valid that is), so maybe 124k to 100k? That's not too bad...

[uptownbro]

Per loop net its 28k per floor so 112K
And its official. I dont have access to the full story
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... polis.html

[mamundsen]

Piper Sandler is moving to North Loop Green in 2025!

At least two asset management firms moving in as well. Apparently this is becoming the finance building.

What firms? How large (employees or sq ft)?

[Blaisdell Greenway]

Per loop net its 28k per floor so 112K
And its official. I dont have access to the full story
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... polis.html

Key information from the article: 1/4 of their 450 Minneapolis employees already live in the North Loop or DT East. Especially the young brokers they need to recruit to grow the business. I can imagine moving to the suburbs would have tanked their recruitment.

[Silophant]

I feel like moving from downtown to the suburbs is a recruitment/retention risk for any company that's planning to require even 2-3 days/week of in-office work, in the current high-turnover job market, unless they're lucky enough to have the majority of their employees in one specific slice of suburbia. If a third of your employees live in Maple Grove, a third in Eagan, and the last third in Arden Hills, I've gotta imagine moving from downtown to a Plymouth office park is going to be a quality of life decrease for two-thirds of them, no matter how free the parking is at the new place.

[daveybabymsp]

I feel like any office move is gonna piss people off. My office has been in golden valley for decades and I’m sure anyone who lives in a far flung western burb would be annoyed if they were expected to go downtown

[Mdcastle]

I think "annoyed" is a bit of an understatement. When we were still in the office, at the company that I work for in Eagan, every so often the rumor would go around the grapevine that we were moving to downtown Minneapolis. Employees reacted with something more like abject horror.

I think there's a certain amount of self-selection with job searching going on- people that like downtown apply for jobs there, and people that like suburban office parks apply for jobs there. In my last job search I never had to expand beyond companies located in suburban office parks.

[Didier]

I'd imagine a big part of it is that people like to complain about change in general.

[seanrichardryan]

US Bank not moving their HQ after MUFG merger- https://www.startribune.com/ceo-says-u- ... 600236722/

[uptownbro]

AT&T is leaving their downtown tower for Bloomington. This is around 90k in office space

[twincitizen]

Moving to the heart of the 494 strip just as a 4-year reconstruction project breaks ground is certainly a choice. Reports said 494 & Xerxes, so I assume that means Wells Fargo Plaza.

Prediction, assuming the location is 7900 Xerxes: AT&T will take over the naming rights on Wells Fargo Plaza, and WF will reduce their occupancy in the building, as they consolidate workers into buildings they own (in Downtown & Midtown)

[SurlyLHT]

Is it just me, or is that building a large downgrade from their current building?

[uptownbro]

It seems like that to me as well. I wonder if they are not going to dramatically reduce there office space with this move

[tedlanda2571]

It seems like that to me as well. I wonder if they are not going to dramatically reduce there office space with this move

Not to denigrate call center and collections workers, but I think the Strib article suggested their downtown space was mostly support functions like that, and frankly that’s a function for which ‘good enough’ is ‘good enough’ when it comes to office space expense. I was actually surprised to learn those functions weren’t already in a bland suburban office building somewhere.

[trkaiser]

How well positioned are our big three office towers for this new environment? I'm curious if they're so top tier that they'll largely be OK, or if either of them might have big challenges coming their way.

[Silophant]

LaSalle Plaza has sold for a fire-sale price, which will apparently allow Hempel to make all sorts of improvements, some of which are good, some of which are terminally car-brained. I'm hoping they're motivated and able to fill in the retail spaces (and that the pickleball courts and whatever are slated for the interior vacant spaces, not the 9th and Hennepin street corner).