MINNEAPOLIS—Office users throughout the US have been abandoningthe suburbs for the CBDs in their respective cities, and that trendmay also have arrived in Minneapolis. Aimia Inc.,for example, has just decided to move its US headquarters fromsuburban Plymouth to downtown's Butler Square. Theglobal loyalty management company will occupy 50,000-square-feet onthe entire seventh floor and a portion of the sixth floor in thehistoric 9-story building.

“If you look back on the history of Minneapolis, you'd see thatthese types of firms would typically move out of downtown,”Jon Dahl, a senior vice president withJLL in Minneapolis, tells GlobeSt.com. “There wasvery little in-migration.”

But in the last five years or so, the flow has reversed. “Ithasn't been the same steady flow that you see in cities like Chicago,” he adds. Still, a diverse setof suburban firms occupy perhaps another 100,000-square-feet ofdowntown space each quarter. “Minneapolis is not primarily known asa tech center, and although there have been a couple of creativefirms, this year we've seen all kinds come into the city includingaccounting firms and law firms as well as tech companies.”