Real estate firm CBRE spends a lot of its time helping clients find office space and this week was the company's turn to get new digs of its own.
Around 200 employees moved to the firm's new leased 34,000 square-foot space at LaSalle Plaza in downtown Minneapolis on Monday after the team decided to consolidate its offices in Bloomington and the Young Quinlan Building in Minneapolis. The two-floor office utilizes the "Workplace360" model of other CBRE locations where employees don't have assigned desks and the environment promotes flexibility.
"For a long time, we talked about how to maximize real estate, but we didn't walk the walk," said Jodie Leppa, CBRE senior project manager who represented CBRE in its build out. "We do that now."
Discussions on the possible move started two years ago as the company examined how to strengthen collaboration between employees, said Blake Hastings, CBRE Minneapolis managing director.
The office has a lot of "we space not just me space," said John Lorence, a senior vice president in CBRE's global corporate services group.
As well as some private offices for employees to use, there are several areas for workers to collaborate such as huddle rooms and lounge-like meeting spaces that mimic millennial-targeted office trends.
"It's nice to be able to move around and have a little variety," said Frank Sherwood, vice president of occupier services at CBRE.
The office style is a combination of industrial and rustic with a glass, metal and wood staircase connecting both floors and kasota stone that accents walls near the elevators. There are also some technological perks such as a media wall in the lobby and a multi-screen Liquid Galaxy tool that allows workers and clients to use Google Earth to toggle on 3-D building images.
