CORPORATE EXODUS: Woke Target Pays Staggering $110 Million Fee to Terminate Minneapolis Lease

Woke retail giant Target Corp. has reportedly shelled out a jaw-dropping $110 million just to walk away from its massive office space in downtown Minneapolis.

The move marks a final, desperate retreat from the 51-story City Center tower, where the company once occupied nearly one million square feet of prime real estate.

Rather than waiting out a lease set to expire in 2031, Target chose to cut a massive check to wash its hands of the property.

The Star Tribune reported:

After moving out of nearly a million square feet of office space in downtown Minneapolis’ City Center building five years ago, Target paid almost $110 million last month to officially break its lease that ran through 2031.

Now the owner of the 51-story tower at 33 S. 6th St. — an entity tied to South Korean conglomerate Samsung — is preparing to list the property for sale, according to a Feb. 2 loan servicer report.

[…]

The Minneapolis-based retailer has continued to pay rent for the offices as they sat dark, making City Center a symbol of the challenges and uncertainties facing a downtown that relied heavily on its white-collar commuter crowds.

Target did try to sublet the space but didn’t have much luck beyond law firm Fox Rothschild moving into about 40,000 square feet of offices in 2022.

A spokesman for Target declined to comment on the lease-ending agreement but emphasized the company’s commitment to downtown Minneapolis as its second-largest employer. The retailer had been the biggest employer in the area for years until Hennepin Healthcare took the spot in 2024. Last summer, Target called its largest corporate unit back to the office three days a week and consolidated employees into other downtown properties near its Nicollet Mall headquarters.

Several other downtown office towers have sold in recent years, many at deep discounts as they grappled with high vacancies, maturing loans, rising borrowing costs and leery lenders.

Minneapolis, which became the national epicenter of radical “Defund the Police” rhetoric and unrest following the 2020 riots, has struggled to regain its footing.

While Target executives publicly tout “hybrid work models,” the reality on the ground is much grimmer. The City Center building has sat largely dark for years, a towering monument to the failed policies of the radical left that have turned downtown into a ghost town of vacant storefronts and rising crime.

The $110 million exit fee is one of the largest lease buyouts in the history of the Twin Cities, and it comes at a time when Target is already under fire from all sides.

This massive financial hit follows a disastrous period for the retailer, which has seen its brand identity shattered by “woke” marketing campaigns and aggressive DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives that alienated its core customer base.

New CEO Michael Fiddelke took the helm amid a firestorm of controversy. Fiddelke, one of a group of Minnesota CEOs begging for “de-escalation” after recent federal immigration enforcement actions in the state, now oversees a company in retreat.

It can be recalled that multiple Target stores across Minnesota and in other states were targeted by protesters with demands for Target’s corporate leadership to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from being allowed in Target stores to arrest criminals.

Video from a Target location in Richfield, Minnesota, shows reportedly over 100 protesters illegally marching through the store, chanting, “The people united will never be defeated,” while holding a Socialist Alternative banner that read, “National Strike Shut Down Trump & ICE.”

Local police were at the scene but refused to do anything as the anti-ICE protesters berated them and called for Target to be shut down.

Not only is Target fleeing its namesake downtown, but the company recently announced it is slashing 500 jobs and reshuffling its entire leadership team in a desperate bid to “move with speed” as sales continue to slump.

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