IDS building to host classes for Globe U

The IDS Center is about to get a new tenant for a large chunk of space in its basement that's been mostly empty since discount retailer T.J. Maxx moved out more than two years ago.

Globe University/ Minnesota School of Business plans to move into what the downtown Minneapolis building's owners call the "concourse" Sept. 1. It will occupy 20,000 square feet of renovated space that will house 11 classrooms, three computer labs and a library. School officials say they will offer both day and evening classes for about 500 students.

The school will begin operating out of smaller temporary quarters on the IDS' 19th floor in July while the concourse-level facilities are being built.

Globe will occupy about one-third of the vacant concourse space. The only other facilities there now are a meeting and document storage room for a law firm that also has offices on the IDS' upper floors and a small building security office for the property's owners, Chicago-based Inland Real Estate Group of Companies.

Securing Globe as a tenant will allow Inland to start renovating the concourse, according to Jim Durda, general manager of the building. The project will create a sort of mini-mall with about 10,000 square feet of common space in the center surrounded by the school and another 30,000 square feet for other tenants.

Durda said the renovation will begin in May and will cost several million dollars. The project will include new flooring, lighting and new heating, cooling and ventilating systems throughout the concourse. The current set of escalators from the Crystal Court also will be replaced, he said.

Over the years, the concourse has had a variety of tenants, including a Woolworth's, a theater and a bar. At one time some of it was used by American Express Financial Advisors (now Ameriprise) for an employee cafeteria until the company moved out of the IDS.

Durda said there have been discussions with other prospective tenants and believes Globe's move could jump-start interest in the concourse. He said discussions earlier this year with Best Buy cooled off because the retailer was concerned about the lack of a street-level presence.

Globe has no such concerns and considers the IDS an ideal location for students of its business-oriented curriculum, according to Mike Myhre, a Globe property manager. The school offers master's, bachelor's and associate degrees in business, accounting, sales and marketing, health care management, information technology, criminal justice and paralegal studies.

"The IDS is the hub of the downtown business community, and it's also convenient to mass transit for our students," Myhre said. Globe spent several months looking at possible downtown sites but quickly identified the IDS as a top prospect, said Corey Whitbeck, a broker at TaTonka Real Estate Advisors, the commercial firm hired by the school to scout locations.

The move downtown is a homecoming of sorts for Globe. It operates cooperatively with the Minnesota School of Business, which began in 1877 in a building at 3rd Street and Marquette Avenue S. The school moved out of downtown in the early 1990s. It now has five schools in the Twin Cities area, plus schools in Rochester, St. Cloud, Eau Claire, Wis., and Sioux Falls, S.D., and an online university, with a combined enrollment of about 6,000 students. It also is building a school in Moorhead, Minn.

Susan Feyder • 612-673-1723