NORTHSTAR CENTER
Minneapolis, MN / 2025 / Historic Tax Credits, Design Guidelines, Construction Oversight
From Mixed-Up to Mixed-Use: Rebuilding the “City within a City” meant making a complex historic site work for a new generation of uses—and making preservation part of the financial strategy.
The Stakes
Developed in the 1960s as Minneapolis’s first mixed-use complex, the Northstar Center combined office, retail, parking, and hotel space in what became known as a “City within a City.” As downtown Minneapolis again looked toward redevelopment in 2019, the outdated Northstar Center had the potential to play a new role—but nearly every aspect of the ambitious project threatened its viability. Multiple buildings, construction campaigns, ownership interests, and redevelopment phases had to be coordinated across an interconnected site, while deep floor plates, low ceilings, and complex circulation challenged the vision for a revitalized mixed-use space that included housing.
The Outcomes
New History worked across multiple property owners and project phases to coordinate the successful timing and execution of the Historic Tax Credit applications for this multi-building site, providing compliance guidance, preservation strategy, and design solutions across different spaces and redevelopment phases. That work helped make the broader concept financially achievable while preserving the mid-century modern character that has become an important part of the project’s public identity and market appeal. The result is a new, award-winning version of Northstar Center’s original “City within a City” vision: former
office space converted to housing, a revitalized hotel, new co-working space, and retail, restaurant, and entertainment amenities integrated throughout the complex.
The most complex reuse projects succeed when preservation, design, financing, and ownership are treated as parts of the same strategy.