ST. CLOUD — Capital One Financial Corporation announced this week it will close its downtown St. Cloud building, including the Capital One Café, at the end of March as the remaining in-person employees shift to remote work.
Capital One to close downtown St. Cloud building that once housed 500 workers
The Capital One Café will also close.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
February 2, 2024 at 4:32PM
About 400 employees have already transitioned to working from home over the past several years and about 100 employees will make the transition with the change, according to a Capital One spokesperson.
“We continually evaluate our real estate footprint to ensure it best meets the needs of our associates, customers and business,” the spokesperson said in an email statement. “On Monday, we announced a decision that a majority of our St. Cloud associates will shift to work remotely and close the St. Cloud building and Café. We will continue supporting our St. Cloud customers as we always have and are committed to investing in the greater St. Cloud community.”
The café will close March 28 and the building will close March 29. The Capital One Café inside the Mall of America in Bloomington will remain open.
Capital One has been a downtown fixture for more than a decade since the Virginia-based company acquired ING in 2012. At the time, ING was operating a 550-employee processing and call center in the building.
“It’s not a surprise. It’s unfortunate,” said Mayor Dave Kleis. “There hasn’t been a lot of activity there since COVID.”
Kleis said Capital One didn’t tell the city of its plans to close the building before the announcement, but said city employees have been anticipating a possible closure since the company stopped buying parking permits during the pandemic.
“At that time, they gave all indications to us that they weren’t going to be coming back in-person,” he said.
The closure opens up redevelopment possibilities for the building, Kleis said. The city is asking for $100 million in state bonding to increase walkability and spur private development in the city’s struggling downtown.
A strategy to bring back foot traffic is to add housing, an approach that’s been successful in several midsize cities across the country, including Fargo. Kleis has said his goal is to add 1,000 downtown housing units in the next five years.
“It does give opportunities when we look at what we’re focusing on downtown — and that’s housing,” he said. “We want people downtown, not only to work downtown but to live downtown.”
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