Silver Lining For 10 years, Gateway North, a 10-story office building in a Minneapolis suburb, was home to The Medica Insurance Co.’s 1,000 employees.
But in 2004, Medica moved out of the glass-covered structure, and the building’s owner asked local real estate marketing consultants Barry Berg and John Wanniger to investigate creative ideas for the building. Given the Twin Cities’ soft office market, Berg and Wanniger thought it would be unlikely that another company would rent the entire building, so the pair turned their attention to residential ideas.
It wasn’t an obvious choice. Unlike most other adaptive reuse projects, Cloud 9 Sky Flats isn’t part of an urban renaissance; it’s located in Minnetonka, a second-ring suburb about 25 minutes from downtown Minneapolis. “We knew we were pioneering and flying in the face of a proven track record on something like this,” Berg says. But he and his partner persisted, believing Gateway North’s floor plan and location would work well as multifamily residential.
Unlike the typical Class A office space, Gateway North is a longer, narrower building, rather than a structure with a square footprint, where the space in the center doesn’t see any light. Instead, the former Medica offices have outstanding window spaces that allow natural light into each unit—without having to resort to an unusually deep floor plan. Additionally, the building sits at the intersection of three major freeways and on the edge of bike trails and county parks with a view of downtown Minneapolis and surrounding rolling hills. Such a location made multifamily a calculated risk for the project. “We were willing to take a chance because we felt this was the best use of the site,” Berg says.
The results are most unexpected for this corner of “the Cities.” Cloud 9 lends itself to an urban loft feel, making it an appealing choice for someone who wants the downtown aesthetic without the city center address. “It’s convenient for young professionals who spend a lot of time working at nearby offices and don’t want to deal with driving downtown everyday,” says Berg, adding that Cloud 9 is also attracting nearby empty-nesters trading in large suburban homes for places that are smaller and easier to maintain.