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Downtown Minneapolis still grappling with office vacancies, plummeting values

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CBRE, which marketed the property, declined to comment on the sale.

Adam Duininck, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said while the low sales prices might sound alarming, there are bright spots. Homeowners in the city are facing a few tough years of property tax increases as commercial values drop, he acknowledged. But the lower prices have also enabled new players to buy downtown properties, paving the way for fresh ideas to transform the urban core.

“Hopefully, they come into the market with a certain kind of energy and optimism that helps drive the market back up,” he said, adding public safety improvements have also fueled recent momentum.

Take the Kickernick Building, which recently opened an art gallery. Earlier this year, Twin Cities-based United Properties sold the historic former warehouse on the edge of the CBD for $3.79 million. In 2017, United paid $19.5 million for the building.

Just a couple blocks away, Tom McCarver and Steve Boynton bought a mixed-use, nearly 31,000-square-foot building at the corner of Seventh Street and Hennepin Avenue that most recently housed Seven Steakhouse & Sushi. Last month, they paid about $4.3 million, slightly more than half of what it sold for in November 2017.

Tom McCarver, CEO of Hennepin Real Estate Partners LLC, poses Tuesday on the rooftop of the Stimson Building in Minneapolis that formerly housed Seven Steakhouse & Sushi. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

After the restaurant closed during the pandemic, the building went into receivership and up for auction. McCarver and Boynton, executives at a company that owns billboards across the metro, were among nearly a dozen bidders. They won the auction in March, but because of “legal hurdles,” the sale didn’t close until last month.



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Wisconsin turnout in presidential race nears 73%

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MADISON, Wis. — About 73% of Wisconsin’s voting-age population cast ballots in the 2024 presidential race, with the raw number of voters topping out at the highest in state history, based on unofficial results.

Nearly 3.4 million people in Wisconsin cast ballots in the presidential race won by President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, and the number is likely to increase slightly as the few remaining outstanding ballots are tabulated. Just over 3.3 million voted for president in the 2020 election.

The turnout percentage of 72.6% in Wisconsin, with a voting-age population of just under 4.7 million people, is just below the 72.9% seen in 2020.

The highest turnout percentage since at least 1948 was 73.2% in 2004, based on records from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Fewer people voted in the two other statewide contests in this year’s election. About 30,000 fewer people voted in the race for U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde. And more than 193,000 fewer people voted for a constitutional amendment limiting voting to U.S. citizens.



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What’s next for Gov. Tim Walz after a failed vice presidential bid?

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Lawmakers passed a nearly $72 billion budget two years ago, by far the largest in state history. Republicans decried the jump in state spending but DFL leaders stressed at the time that a large chunk of the roughly 40% increase from was one-time spending. Whether the next budget will drop substantially remains uncertain, given inflationary and spending pressures.

Walz is in his second term and whether he would seek a third round as governor or look to another office remains to be seen. Minnesota does not limit the number of terms a governor can serve.

The governor’s daily schedule did not include any events Wednesday.

Staff writers Christopher Vondracek and Ryan Faircloth contributed to this report.



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Wisconsin’s Senate race appears to be close enough to allow for a recount

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MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s hotly contested race for U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde, who was backed by President-elect Donald Trump, appeared to be close enough early Wednesday for a recount to be requested.

Baldwin, a two-term incumbent, declared victory early Wednesday over Hovde, a multimillionaire businessman who poured millions of his own money into race. The Associated Press has not called the race. Hovde’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Baldwin declared victory after the tally of absentee ballots from Milwaukee was reported around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. Baldwin had a lead of 0.9% based on the unofficial results, just within the 1% margin that would allow for Hovde to request a recount if he pays for it.

”The people of Wisconsin have chosen someone who always puts Wisconsin first, someone who shows up, listens, and works with everyone to get the job done,” Baldwin said in a statement. ”And they rejected the billionaires and the special interests who want to come to our state, spread hate and division, and buy their way into power.”

On Tuesday night, Hovde blamed the tight race on America First candidate Thomas Leager, a far-right candidate who was recruited by Democratic operatives and donors to run as a conservative.

Leager ran a distant fourth, but got more votes than the margin between Baldwin and Hovde.

”It’s unfortunate if the Democrats wouldn’t have put a plant, this probably would have been called some time ago,” Hovde told his backers before sending them home. ”But you know what? It is what it is.”

Baldwin ran ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost Wisconsin to Republican Donald Trump by less than a percentage point. That marks the fifth time in the past seven presidential elections that a presidential election in Wisconsin has been decided by less than a point.



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