Returning workers add some bustle to downtown Minneapolis

Monday mornings at Corner Coffee in downtown Minneapolis used to be slow But this week store manager Mia Pariseau had at least five people lined up at any given time for about an hour straight We got just slammed Pariseau explained And it was just me and one other person here Corner Coffee sits just down the street from Target headquarters making it a prime spot for employees of the retailer especially now that those in the company s commercial unit were ordered to work in person three days a week starting Sept In-person work is back to almost of pre-pandemic numbers according to Kittie Fahey senior director of advancement for the Minneapolis Downtown Council That s expected to increase as the numbers from Target s return-to-work initiative come in As Minneapolis continues to recover from the surge of remote work spurred by the COVID- pandemic the return of employees of several major companies is already changing the force downtown It s more vibrant and exciting during the day declared Madelyn Dunn-Lammert an associate designer for Target Dunn-Lammert who primarily worked remotely since she started three years ago commented being able to grab lunch with co-workers or work through a project in-person helps build company connections and facilitate collaboration especially in a creative field For Fahey this increased collaboration and socialization in professional settings is good to see She hopes people will extend this connection past working hours to take part in the downtown neighborhood Go out for lunch stay after and go meet friends go do a few things Fahey mentioned Use all the materials we have But even with Target buzzing with a back-to-school-like potential downtown s pre-pandemic liveliness has not fully returned It s a lot less busy post-pandemic announced Jenny Lissarrague an attorney who has worked downtown since It s not quite as dead as it was like but it s still down quite a bit from what it was before the pandemic A worker walks through the IDS Center an office tower at the center of the skyway system with her lunch on Monday Sept in downtown Minneapolis Minn Credit Ellen Schmidt MinnPost CatchLight Local Assessment for America After remote work skyrocketed during the pandemic Minnesota was slow to bring employees back to the office but now the state is catching up according to Fahey Minnesota s share of primarily remote workers was in higher than the national share of according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis In Minnesota s share dropped to It felt a little bit less isolated before the pandemic Lissarrague disclosed It s getting a little bit of that feel back I came down here during specific of those high pandemic years and it was a ghost town it was just nobody But will anyone hang around Target is the second-largest employer downtown behind Hennepin Healthcare Other large employers include Wells Fargo and Ameriprise Financial For Lissarrague getting downtown in the first place is more challenging than before the pandemic as increased remote work means fewer buses are needed to journey people downtown Even as workers return traffic hours are more spread out than before the pandemic Fahey reported Numerous return-to-work policies allow employees to choose certain days to come into the office and specific workers may be commuting to work around noon rather than earlier in the morning As in-person work returns the pre-pandemic workday structure may again become the norm Of the top downtown employers have back-to-office policies according to Fahey The Twin Cities also saw an increase in in-person work over the summer as state governing body employees were required to spend of their workdays in the office starting June a agenda that was met with resistance Fahey hopes the return to downtown will not be confined to workday hours For the downtown scene to regain its pre-pandemic vibrancy people need to stick around after they clock out That also goes for the roughly downtown residents not just commuters leaving the city at the end of the day It used to be you sort of came downtown you hung out downtown Fahey reported But now it s like they kind of come in they work and they go home and we d love to see that not be the direction anymore That isn t perpetually easy though Fahey reported restaurants also close earlier than they did before the pandemic so there is totally not as much to stick around for You d be hard pressed to find in the central business district a restaurant open until p m Fahey stated That s crazy different than pre-pandemic Still as more and more people line up to get coffee on their way to the office the revitalization of downtown life is trending toward optimism The future is bright Pariseau mentioned Pedestrians use the skyway system on Monday Sept in downtown Minneapolis Minn Credit Ellen Schmidt MinnPost CatchLight Local Statement for America Wren Warne-Jacobsen is a reporting intern with MinnPost The post Returning workers add specific bustle to downtown Minneapolis appeared first on MinnPost