When Thrivent Financial moves into its new corporate headquarters next year, its investment division will move into space of its own.

The 300-member team, which includes 117 investment professionals, will take up 118,000 square feet of leased space on six floors of the AT&T Tower a few blocks away from Thrivent's new corporate center in downtown Minneapolis.

Thrivent announced a year ago that it would move in spring 2020 into an eight-story office complex currently under construction in the northern portion of its block of surface parking located across 5th Avenue from its current headquarters.

But Thrivent decided leasing space was the best option for the investment team because its size can fluctuate. Right now, the division is "growing rapidly, and this gives us the flexibility to add additional space," said David Royal, chief investment officer at Thrivent and president of Thrivent Mutual Funds.

"When you build a building from scratch you can't just add a floor, right?" he said. "And you don't have options to potentially have less space in the future. You've built what you've built."

The 33-story AT&T Tower on the corner of 9th Street and Marquette Avenue was a good fit for the investment team with a recently renovated lobby, just the right amount of amenities and unobstructed views with plenty of light on floors 22 through 27, where Thrivent's offices will be located, Royal said.

While the amount of space will remain mostly the same as what Thrivent's investment division currently uses, there will be more collaborative and meeting space and room for an additional 70 or so future hires, he said.

Thrivent is working with architectural firm DLR Group and Mortenson Construction on the AT&T build-out.

Thrivent's existing 17-story headquarters has been sold for $55 million to Hennepin County, and the financial company is now leasing the space from the county until the headquarters and investment division space is completed.

Thrivent will move 1,200 workers into its new corporate center; total employment for the financial services company is about 6,750 people.

The success of Thrivent's investment division over the last five years has helped fuel the need for dedicated space. The investment team includes those who manage the underlying investments to Thrivent's insurance and annuity products and the Thrivent Mutual Funds subsidiary.

Thrivent Mutual Funds last week received seven Lipper awards for the performance of its Small Cap Stock Fund, Mid Cap Stock Fund and Aggressive Allocation Stock Fund, and a group award for the performance of its mixed assets class. The Thrivent Mid Cap Stock fund (TMSIX) was named Best Mid-Cap core fund for its three-, five- and 10-year performance.

Also last week, Barron's announced its annual fund family rankings, with Thrivent Financial at No. 4 for best mutual fund family behind American Funds, MainStay Funds and Eaton Vance. Minneapolis-based Sit Investment Associates was No. 7 on the list, and the magazine mentioned that part of the success of MainStay Funds was from the contributions of Minneapolis-based Winslow Capital Management.

"This is the greatest number of awards we've won in a given year, and I'm so proud of our team," Royal said.

Patrick Kennedy • 612-673-7926Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495