Minneapolis-St. Paul Office Market Report

Downtown St. Paul is more insulated. Among the nation's major CBDs with at least 12 million square feet of local office inventory, downtown St. Paul is one of just two that boasted sub-10 percent vacancy entering April 2022. More impressive, availability in the St. Paul urban core was in the double digits prior to the onset of the pandemic. While much of the country's other urban corridors saw vacancy rates surge as COVID-19 instituted remote and hybrid operations, the rate in St. Paul declined or held firm in seven of the last nine quarters through March of this year. Limited construction is a contributing factor. The area has not added a complex larger than 30,000 square feet in more than 15 years, and no such space is underway or in the proposal stage. On the demand side, the locale is a hot bed for attorneys and federal agencies. The USDA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers each moved into offices here in June 2022.