Hennepin County Offices

625 BUILDING PHASE 2

Hennepin County purchased this 17-story office tower which was the former headquarters for Thrivent Financial. With approximately 300,00 square feet of office, the building has many desirable features like efficient floorplates and tall windows. It offers great access to light and views as well as amenities like a full-service cafeteria, auditorium, and connection to the skyway system.

As part of the Hennepin County long-range plan to consolidate their workforces to a downtown complex, Phase 2 of this remodel continued infrastructure improvements and implemented activity-based workplace strategy for four floors. The hybrid workspaces feature “neighborhoods” where individuals can choose the type of work environment that best suits their needs. Various Hennepin County departments including the Sheriff’s Department have access to a variety of meeting room types, both collaborative and private as well as lounge, kitchen, lactation and wellness spaces. MEP improvements and upgrades to these floors also addressed building systems deficiencies and improvements to IT, security, acoustics and A/V.

Existing demountable walls became a key design strategy in utilizing building components that had been left behind. Hundreds of floor-to-ceiling panels were salvaged, inventoried and repurposed to meet the County’s budget and sustainability goals. These panels were re-incorporated into the overall floor plan to create huddle rooms, conference rooms and individual offices thereby saving money and time as well as creating jobs for the installers who applied new wall covering to each panel. To ensure access to daylight, workspaces with low panels and gathering areas were placed near the perimeter of the building thereby creating an environment of wellness for all.

Designing for Resources:

• Reused existing wall panels

• Reincorporate throughout all four floors

Designing for Discovery:

• Lessons from Phase One were incorporated to make placement of thermostats into the joints of wall panel system and floor boxes in the floor easier which reduced contractor installation time

• Post occupancy feedback from Phase One was implemented into workstation, furniture and AV configurations to improve employee work productivity

Designing for Economy:

• Reused an existing structure lowered initial costs versus building new

• Improved the interior while increasing energy efficiency with updated HVAC thus reducing carbon footprint

Location: Minneapolis, MN
Dates: 2024 - 2025
Size: 80,000 square feet
Photos: Courtesy of Round Three Photography

Environment — Salvaging thousands of furniture wall system panels kept them from waste into our landfills.

Economic Impact — Jobs were created to remove, refinish and reinstall existing wall panels. This process took place on one of the other floors in the building saving delivery costs as well.

Equity — Everyone works differently so there are spaces for both individual and group activities…quiet and focused, collaborative.