Target Pays $110M to Exit Longtime Minneapolis City Center Lease

Target has paid about $110 million to terminate its long-running lease on the City Center tower at 33 S. 6th St., formally ending a tenancy that dated to the building’s 1983 opening and a lease that had been extended through 2031 after a 2015 renewal. The payment completes a shift that began when Target vacated the 51-story tower in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic and continued to pay rent on offices it no longer occupied.

Company efforts to offload the space failed to erase the vacancy. Target tried to sublet portions of its nearly one million square feet inside City Center and in 2022 secured a single confirmed subtenant when the Fox Rothschild law firm moved into about 40,000 square feet. The larger office footprint remained dark as Target consolidated employees into other downtown properties near its Nicollet Mall headquarters and implemented a return-to-office plan calling its largest corporate unit back three days a week last summer.

The City Center owner is described in reporting as an entity tied to South Korean conglomerate Samsung, and a Feb. 2 loan servicer report says that owner is preparing to list the 51-story tower for sale. Downtown Minneapolis has seen deep discounts on office sales, high vacancies, maturing loans and rising borrowing costs, and City Center had become a visible example of those stresses while Target continued paying for empty space.

Target spokespeople declined to comment on the lease-ending agreement but told reporters the company remains committed to downtown Minneapolis. The Star Tribune noted that Target had been downtown’s biggest employer for years but slipped below Hennepin Healthcare in 2024, underscoring changes in the downtown employment landscape.

Public narratives about why Target chose to break the lease have diverged. An Original Report framed the exit as coming “after months of left-wing activist protests occupying stores and offices” and linked the decision to rising crime and downtown vacancy, while other coverage documents activist tactics without establishing causation. The Independent reported there was “no indication that its decision to break its City Center lease was influenced by ongoing anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis” and described Project Salt, in which “customers bought salt from Target and returned in an effort to jam up lines and cause long waits at Target stores.” The Independent also reported protesters “accused the company of allowing ‘ICE and other federal agents to stage their Minnesota operations in their parking lots and permitted ICE agents to enter their stores to detain employees.’”

Local brokers see the lease break as a pivot point for the building. Ryan Watts, executive vice president of the local CBRE office that will market City Center, said, “While Target had it under control, it was only going to be office. Now that it’s not under lease by them, I think there’s more ability to explore alternative options.” Watts and others flagged conversion to mixed-use or housing as a possible path, mirroring trends in other cities where owners repurpose large, underperforming office towers.

With the $110 million settlement in hand and a loan servicer report flagging a for-sale preparation, the owner tied to Samsung will decide whether to market City Center to traditional office buyers or pursue adaptive reuse. The payment closes a long chapter of Target’s physical presence in the tower it had occupied since 1983 and hands control of 33 S. 6th St. to a market that remains cautious about downtown office demand.