Shopping for Commercial Real Estate

Metropolitan areas across the country have been attracting new businesses with online commercial real estate information for almost a decade. Minneapolis–St. Paul lagged behind others until a collaboration between public and private sectors produced a new Web site last year.

MetroMSP.org is a one-stop site for businesses looking for space in the Twin Cites metro area. Users can find marketplace data, demographics, and commercial or industrial real estate listings from not just Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington, but all 11 counties in the metro area.

The group behind the site includes Xcel Energy, Wells Fargo, Kraus Anderson, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, and several other companies and organizations. It was convened by the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, which now administers the site. The chamber’s president and CEO, Todd Klingel, called the site an important economic development tool that represents the entire region as one united opportunity for expansion and growth of companies.

Klingel says that while buyers have been turning to the Web for information, a company interested in establishing a business in the Twin Cities had to surf several sites and spend a lot of time gathering the information that is now collected on MetroMSP. “In the past, our community has not done well in presenting itself as one exciting product, with all the resources, features, and benefits the region has to offer,” Klingel says. “We realized that we needed to wake up and engage in this new dimension.”

When the chamber approached the Minnesota Commercial Association of Realtors (MNCAR), an Edina-based organization that maintains a commercial property database, the association quickly signed on to the project. MetroMSP showcases MNCAR properties, which are provided to the site free and updated weekly.

The chamber then approached several companies and organizations, including the major cities and counties in the region; built an alliance of 17 organizations; and put together a planning and organizing committee. The two-year pilot project raised $500,000 from its private and public partners.