01Occupiers
Tenant representation
Search, tour, negotiate and occupy, with one advisor on your side of the table.
Practice detailSite selection and build to suit
Labour, logistics, incentives and delivery for occupiers with a location decision.
- Occupiers
- Twin Cities metro
- Written scope before we start
- Existing building
- 9 to 14 months
- Build to suit
- 18 to 30 months
- Utility service upgrade
- 6 to 18 months
How it works
For requirements where the question is not which suite but which city. Labour availability, drive times, utility capacity, incentives and, where nothing existing fits, a building designed around the operation.
Site selection is a different discipline from leasing. The inputs are labour, logistics, utilities, zoning and incentives, and the answer is often a location nobody on the team had considered.
We model the workforce first: how many people with the required skills live inside a thirty minute drive, what they are paid, and which competing employers are drawing from the same pool. For a distribution operation running two shifts, a labour shed that looks fine at nine in the morning can look impossible at eleven at night.
Then logistics: drive times to your customers and your inbound nodes, interstate access, rail where it matters, and the cost per mile difference across the candidate sites. Then utilities: electrical service capacity, natural gas pressure, water and sanitary sewer, and how long the utility says it will take, which is usually longer than the developer says.
Where nothing in the existing inventory fits, we manage a build to suit: site control, entitlement, developer selection, design coordination and a lease or purchase structure that does not leave you owning the risk of a building you cannot re-let.
What the assignment includes
- 01
Requirement and operations model
Throughput, shift pattern, headcount by role, equipment, power and utility load, and growth over the lease term.
- 02
Labour shed analysis
Population with the required skills inside 20, 30 and 45 minute drive times, prevailing wages, and competing employers drawing on the same pool.
- 03
Logistics modelling
Drive times and cost per mile to inbound and outbound nodes across the candidate sites, with interstate and rail access.
- 04
Utility and entitlement diligence
Electrical capacity and lead time, gas pressure, water and sanitary, zoning, setbacks, truck routing and outdoor storage rules.
- 05
Incentive negotiation
State and municipal programmes, tax increment financing, job creation credits and utility rebates, pursued in parallel with the site decision rather than after it.
- 06
Build to suit delivery
Site control, developer selection, design coordination, construction oversight and a lease structure sized to your covenant.
The sequence
- 01
Model
Four to six weeks. Operations, headcount, utility load, growth.
- 02
Screen
Labour, logistics and utility screening narrows the geography to three or four candidates.
- 03
Diligence
Zoning, utilities, soils, environmental and truck routing on the shortlist.
- 04
Incentives
Parallel conversations with the state and each candidate municipality.
- 05
Structure
Lease, purchase or build to suit, with the risk allocation written down.
- 06
Deliver
Entitlement, design, construction and occupancy. Eighteen to thirty months for a build to suit.
Why clients keep us on retainer
- 1Labour modelled by shift, not as a single daytime population figure
- 2Utility lead times confirmed with the provider before a site is committed
- 3Incentives pursued in parallel with the decision, when they still have leverage
- 4Build to suit structures reviewed for re-lettability, not just for delivery date
Questions we get asked
More across the whole firm on the questions page.
As a rule of thumb, once the requirement is over about 50,000 square feet of industrial space or 75 employees, the labour and logistics variables outweigh the building variables and a structured search pays for itself. Below that, a well run leasing search usually reaches the same answer faster.
Yes, though they are more modest than in some competing states and are usually tied to job creation and wage thresholds rather than to capital investment alone. Municipal tax increment financing, the Minnesota Job Creation Fund and utility efficiency rebates are the common threads. Amounts are negotiated case by case and we do not quote them in advance.
Utility lead time and entitlement. A developer's schedule assumes the electrical service and the conditional use permit arrive on time. We confirm both with the provider and the city before the site is committed, and we build the risk of slippage into the lease commencement language.
For our Twin Cities clients, yes. We routinely screen greater Minnesota, western Wisconsin and the Fargo and Sioux Falls corridors, and we partner with local brokerage in any market where we do not have direct coverage.
Related practices
02Owners and investors
Valuation and market research
Broker opinions of value, market studies and quarterly submarket fundamentals.
Practice detail03Owners and investors
Tell us the requirement
Size, timing, the constraint you cannot move. We will say honestly whether we are the right firm for it.