Pohlad Cos. will move most of its businesses to RBC Gateway

Pohlad Cos. will move seven of its businesses and about 340 of its employees into the RBC Gateway, the new tower being built in downtown Minneapolis by its development firm, United Properties.

The employees will move into the RBC Gateway in early 2022 and will occupy three floors and 96,000 square feet in the 37-floor, 1.2-million-square-foot building. Almost half of the building's square footage will be dedicated to office space.

RBC Wealth Management will occupy 10 floors as the building's largest tenant. The building will also include a Four Seasons Hotel and private residences.

In addition to United Properties, the Pohlad firms that will move into the new tower are real estate finance company NorthMarq, car dealership group Carousel Motor Group, the Pohlad Family Foundation, Pohlad Investment Group, CRP Holdings and Marquette Cos.

Five of those firms now occupy three floors in RBC Plaza, the same building that Minneapolis-based RBC Wealth Management will vacate when about 1,800 of its employees move to the new tower at the end of 2021. That will leave JLL, which oversees leasing at RBC Plaza, with about 340,000 square feet of space to fill.

Brent Robertson, a managing director at JLL's Twin Cities office, said it is already speaking with multiple companies that are interested in the building. Robertson said he's looking to lease the RBC Plaza space to two to four new tenants.

United Properties, with its move to the new tower, will vacate approximately 17,000 square feet of office space in Gaviidae Common that it owns. It hasn't determined what it will do with that space, said United Properties spokeswoman Sheila Thelemann. The company leased about 6,200 square feet to RBC, the anchor tenant for RBC Gateway, but has 25,000 square feet of unleased space on the two floors it occupies, Thelemann said.

Construction of RBC Gateway began last week, three years after construction was originally planned and almost five years after the City of Minneapolis began seeking redevelopment proposals for the site that had been a city-owned parking lot. A groundbreaking ceremony was held Tuesday.

The project was delayed multiple times after losing its apartment developer, original architecture firm, hotel brand and intended equity partner.

United Properties last week closed on the $10.4-million purchase of the parking lot bounded by S. 3rd Street, Hennepin Avenue, Nicollet Mall, and Washington Avenue. For years, the site was known as the "Nicollet Hotel Block," a reference to the former Nicollet Hotel that was torn down in 1991.

Although construction of RBC Gateway just began, almost 85% of the building is leased, United Properties said.

The tower will be 508 feet high, one of the 10 tallest in Minneapolis.