urbanMSP

Hmmm...

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -soar.html

Hmmm...

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... -soar.html

This is all information we've discussed in this thread a lot over the past many months. It's a good article, and not all doom & gloom, like I thought it would be. I trust his math, but what's not known are the things that can't be predicted (with regards to companies moving into downtown, or new companies expanding into this market).

Is there any historical significance to the Baker Center or the Northstar Center where at some point they couldn't be torn down and replaced? Should they?

there will never be a building over 1,000 ft in this town unless target wants one. hopefully they won't move more employees out to the 'burbs.

the "super tall" speculation here of the past couple years was fun but not realistic.

if u like mega buildings visit chicago. oh, and bill cooper is an ass. don't bank at TCF.

Is there any historical significance to the Baker Center or the Northstar Center where at some point they couldn't be torn down and replaced? Should they?

The Baker Building itself is an absolute gem. The city would never allow it to be torn down, nor should they. The rest of the Baker Block buildings are fairly undistinguished, although they are decent solid old structures. Tearing down any of the Baker or Northstar blocks would cause a tremendous disruption to the skyway system, which I imagine would please all the skyway haters.

oh, and bill cooper is an ass. don't bank at TCF.

Totally agree. He is a complete ass.

I love the outside of the "Northstar East" corner at 6th St and 2nd Ave S. It's a classic mid-rise Art Nouveau that's about a century old and still maintains some great limestone detail at the sidewalk level (it could stand to lose the 80's-era super reflective glass, but it's not among the worst examples of that downtown). It's the type of building that has understated class and presence even if it may not be noticed. Active street level uses would help.

To a lesser degree, I'm also a fan of the US Trust building on the Baker block further south (this is the building that housed Peter's Grill). It's a great example of the transition to midcentury modern... it has the massing and presence of these century-old commercial blocks (as opposed to the tower/podium design of the First Bank/Canadian Pacific Plaza which was actually built a few years earlier) but it has really cool alternating detail in the vertical bands of windows.

there will never be a building over 1,000 ft in this town unless target wants one. hopefully they won't move more employees out to the 'burbs.

the "super tall" speculation here of the past couple years was fun but not realistic.

if u like mega buildings visit chicago. oh, and bill cooper is an ass. don't bank at TCF.

That's exactly what they're doing later this year when the new buildings in Brooklyn Park are completed.

It's funny how fashionable it is to boycott TCF for moving out of downtown, but no one seems to say anything about Target who will have 5,000-7,500 employees in Brooklyn Park.

Based on what I've heard, Target is growing both downtown and in the suburbs. Downtown real estate is expensive, and it can be hard to justify that for back office employees.

I'd like to see Minneapolis really target some non-downtown locations for this type of development (I know that in some sense, that's what this latest Wells Fargo project was). The Van White location could also be a great opportunity for a major back office function, especially one that's tied to an employer that also has a presence downtown.

Gman-Target essentially occupies 5 buildings downtown, they are not moving out of any of them, in fact, they have long term leases in all of them. Now that they have trimmed staff in some of the buildings I'd look for growth in a year or so. My wifes department has been rumored to move to BP since they started building up there, but I'll believe it when I see it. I've also been told that other departments are already in growth mode and want to take her departments space when and if they ever move. The only way I see them downsizing space downtown is if we have another market crash and Target collapses. Judging from the lines I run into at the checkout counters, I don't think that's happening anytime soon.

Agreed. Target still has a very large presence downtown, and that will not be reduced. They are only moving some of the departments to BP that dont require being downtown as they are running out of room. And it is much more expensive.

Certainly, though it's a long way from downtown to Brooklyn Park. It isn't necessary to go outside of I-694, let alone 610, just to find less expensive land, is it?

Certainly, though it's a long way from downtown to Brooklyn Park. It isn't necessary to go outside of I-694, let alone 610, just to find less expensive land, is it?

Dayton's bought many, many, many acres around the future route of 610 quite a long time ago, so they already owned the land. You can pull up the parcels on the Hennepin County property tax map- it's quite staggering.

there will never be a building over 1,000 ft in this town unless target wants one. hopefully they won't move more employees out to the 'burbs.

the "super tall" speculation here of the past couple years was fun but not realistic.

if u like mega buildings visit chicago. oh, and bill cooper is an ass. don't bank at TCF.

Never is a very strong word. Target wanted to build taller at there current HQ in downtown, and may very well want to continue to do that in the future. MPLS is more then just a one note economy. I really do not understand the pessimism. Is it the never ending winter?

It's been said before around this site many times, but class A office space is not nearly as market driven as B and C. We could still see some significant development of class A. Yet the office tower boom that occurred here in the 1980's and 90's will probably never happen again. The workplace has changed (as the article mentioned) with companies having leaner staffing for a variety of factors.

TCF leaving downtown is an anomaly. There have been many media reports they are on the chopping block to be bought out by a larger bank anyways. I think the reality is we are going to see more and more migration of businesses moving their offices downtown from the suburbs. This is a national trend really.

I really do not understand the pessimism. Is it the never ending winter?

No we are just Minnesotan's it's in our nature.

Outside of NYC or Chicago, I don't think there is any city in the US that is having office space built on wild speculation anymore. The building boom of the late 80's was a hybrid for having an anchor, but the bigger portion of the towers were spec space. Why some of them went back to the lenders after the real estate downturn in the early 90s. While they had their anchors, the space that they really needed to fill to cash flow the building were hard to get users without discounts in rents.

Just look at Dallas, Denver, OKC, they all had stagnant office space for decades. Kind of funny, those 3 are all energy towns.

Best I can tell is OKC had a new tower build in 2012 but nothing more. Denver has 2 proposed, but have not broken ground that I'm aware of, office towers and one Residential proposed. Dallas, I did not see any new proposals for office. I believe that they have always had a large vacancy in their markets due to over building earlier. Like MPLS they maybe getting close to having vacancy rates that allow for building, but as of yet, I don't see much in actual construction at this time.

MPLS has 2 residential towers and 3 office building that are in construction mode at the moment downtown.

A large number of cities are building office towers, some of them spec:

SF
Seattle
Philly
NYC
LA
DC
Houston
Atlanta
etc.

A large number of cities are building office towers, some of them spec:

SF
Seattle
Philly
NYC
LA
DC
Houston
Atlanta
etc.

Cities that I'm actually jealous of...

SEA
SFO
maybe Philly and DC

much shorter list of cities that actually matter