Professional sports were front and center during a daylong event focused on downtown Minneapolis real estate last week.

Could a Hall of Fame dedicated to Minnesota sports be the shot in the arm that downtown Minneapolis needs? Minneapolis leaders and sports executives who spoke during Minnesota Real Estate Journal's Downtown Summit seem to think so.

Though he didn't divulge too many details, Timberwolves and Lynx CEO Ethan Casson said Meet Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Foundation are working on a sports Hall of Fame in the Dayton's Project, with the goal of creating synergy with downtown sporting events.

Both professional basketball teams are coming off of strong seasons with record-breaking ticket sales and deep playoff appearances. After touting the Timberwolves and Lynx's recent successes, the organization's top executive did not shy away from discussing Target Center’s future.

“We are appreciative of the … public and private initiative [to upgrade Target Center], but here we are six, seven, eight years later and this building isn’t as competitive as it needs to be,” Casson said during the Oct. 24 event at the Depot hotel.

Target Center is owned by the City, but the Timberwolves and Lynx organization has continued to make improvements to the arena, including almost $10 million for a new premium floor-level club that's debuting this season.

“We need to be in the new arena conversation… and that has to be centered around downtown Minneapolis," Casson said.

Minnesota Twins President and CEO Dave St. Peter hopes the Timberwolves and Lynx look to the symbiosis of Target Field in the North Loop and U.S. Bank Stadium in Elliot Park as the basketball teams identify a site that will bolster “the next phase of energy within our downtown.”

How can downtown’s vibrancy be enhanced through sports? St. Peter wants to grow Target Field into “the premier open air concert venue in the Upper Midwest.” The baseball stadium currently hosts four to six concerts a year, and St. Peter hopes to double that count to 10 big events, during all times of the year. He said an outdoor Lynx game, college football, soccer, and a "winter wonderland" are all on the table.

The Timberwolves and Lynx would not be the only beneficiary of a new downtown arena. St. Peter argued that a new basketball arena would put Minneapolis at the top of the list for hosting events like the NCAA Wrestling, USA Swimming, WWE, and the Final Four. “[Minneapolis] is not even competitive in the bidding process anymore compared to places like Detroit [for the men’s and women’s Final Four]," he said.

Minnesota Sports and Events CEO Wendy Blackshaw is tasked with wooing large sporting events to downtown Minneapolis, as well as St. Paul and Bloomington. While she sees value in a new basketball arena, it’s the funding mechanism – or lack thereof – for her organization that makes its work more difficult. While other cities have continuous public funding to help pay for things like public safety, operations, and security for events, Minneapolis relies heavily on one-off corporate sponsorships. Blackshaw said the Twin Cities “continually lose" large sporting events to Indianapolis, home of the NCAA, because it has public funding.

Even with the positive news surrounding the Dayton’s Project, Blackshaw hears comments all the time about the lack of retail. “[The sports Hall of Fame, pop-up markets] and other innovative, out-of-the-box ideas really help, but I also think that having permanent retail will help all of us.”

Meanwhile, commercial real estate experts also see opportunity in downtown’s continued evolution to mixed-use.

Minneapolis Foundation CEO and former Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak describes a time when downtown was “six blocks surrounded by railroad tracks, parking ramps and parking lots.” But downtown has since transformed from a skyway-centric core to a series of urban villages, with tens of thousands of residents, stretching from the North Loop to the Northeast riverfront, and from the central business district to Loring Park and East Town. 

Could the ‘skyway district’ be the next urban village? Sherman Associates President Chris Sherman poses the question of a rebranded CBD when talking about the growth of downtown’s neighborhoods – something his company has had a significant hand in, most recently through the office-to-residential conversion at Northstar Center, which is delivering 216 units to the city’s core.

Sherman points to the long-term stabilizing effect that conversions bring to a city’s tax base. At a time when the assessed values of downtown Minneapolis office buildings are plummeting and the tax burden is shifting to homeowners, conversions can offer a saving grace. While residential buildings are taxed at a lower rate than commercial office, “it still leads to real estate taxes being paid long term by five to six times what they were,” Sherman said.

In areas where historic tax credits might not be applicable for all conversion projects, Rethos has been advocating for the less-stringent CUB incentive program to fill the gap. While the tax credit program did not pass the Minnesota Legislature in 2024, Rethos continues to advocate for the incentive looking forward toward the 2025 Legislative session.

As part of another new initiative, the Downtown Council and Downtown Improvement District have partnered on a new retail inventory tool that will be available by the end of the year. The online dashboard will have detailed information about retail space vacancies, asking rental rates, and other attributes, such as whether a space has a kitchen hood. It is intended to provide real-time data to parties interested in finding space downtown, but also to shed light on economic indictors of downtown, according to Lisa Middag of the Downtown Council.

Since leaving JLL to start a new real estate firm, Willow Peak, Erin Fitzgerald has been researching cities and what makes neighborhoods tick. Her approach calls for an entertainment-first focus to drive revitalization. In 2023, she created the Minneapolis Renaissance Coalition, a working group of public and private officials, to concentrate on redevelopment efforts in the Warehouse District. “What will win the day is mixed-use” Fitzgerald said, “Mixed-use buildings in mixed-use neighborhoods.”

Another panel featuring Duininck and Minneapolis City Council members Katie Cashman and Michael Rainville, and Council President Elliott Payne allowed the public officials to share their recent work in and around downtown. 

Cashman mentioned meeting with neighbors regarding the future of the HERC incinerator in the North Loop, insinuating that although it has been there for 30 years, the site could be used for something else in the future.

Rainville noted the City Council’s recent passing of an ordinance intended to make it easier to convert downtown office buildings into housing. He also announced that the Minneapolis Fire Department has plans to move back into the current Minneapolis Police Department's 1st Precinct at 19 N. Fourth Street once the new police precinct at the Century Plaza building is operational, a plan intended to improve fire department response time for the North Loop and Warehouse District.

What to do with the riverfront post office and its hulking parking ramp has been a perennial topic. Rainville said he has approached U.S. Postal Service officials about taking down the ramp and was disappointed by their most recent approach to revisiting the discussion. A postage stamp-sized ad in a local paper was the only strategy used by USPS to get the word out about a public hearing, according to Rainville. "So much for ‘public’ outreach," he said.

Payne noted that the council’s recent efforts to expand the downtown sales tax district to encompass more areas of the North Loop, citing the need to capture value from the neighborhood’s vibrancy.

The other council members commend Payne for his work in rolling out the city’s Canopy behavioral health crisis team, which enables mental health workers to respond to 911 calls instead of armed police officers.