{"id":64656,"date":"2021-03-15T03:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T07:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=64656"},"modified":"2021-03-14T14:26:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T18:26:04","slug":"target-is-careful-to-only-cite-economic-reasons-for-abandoning-their-downtown-minneapolis-headquarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2021\/03\/15\/target-is-careful-to-only-cite-economic-reasons-for-abandoning-their-downtown-minneapolis-headquarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Target is careful to only cite economic reasons for abandoning their downtown Minneapolis headquarters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Miltimore<\/a> explains why the Target corporate headquarters in Minneapolis will be given up — for reasons that go beyond the claimed success of the telecommuting encouraged by the 2020 pandemic lockdowns:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A building burning in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.
Photo by Hungryogrephotos via Wikipedia.<\/p><\/div>\n

Target Corporation, the eighth largest retailer in the United States, announced in an email to employees on Thursday that it will be leaving the City Center, its primary downtown Minneapolis location.<\/p>\n

Company officials cited improved remote work opportunities and less need for space as the drivers for the decision.<\/p>\n

“In just one year we’ve proven that we can drive incredible results, together, from our kitchens and basements and living rooms,” said Melissa Kremer, executive vice president and leader of Target’s human resources operations.<\/p>\n

Target, the largest employer in Minneapolis with some 8,500 corporate workers, says the 3,500 employees who work at the City Center will still have a “home base,” but it will be at another Minneapolis location or in the nearby suburb of Brooklyn Park.<\/p>\n

A Story of Capital Flight?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On one hand, there is little reason to doubt Target’s explanation for abandoning its headquarters. Many anticipated that the pandemic would lead to a normalization of remote work.<\/p>\n

“The future of work will be distributed,” Erica Brescia, the chief operating officer of Github, told the BBC last fall. “We’re going to see a big shift from office by default to remote by default.”<\/p>\n

Part of that shift, it’s reasonable to assume, would be corporations moving away from high-end corporate real estate. Yet it also shouldn’t be forgotten (or ignored) that Target’s decision comes less than a year after Minneapolis suffered some of the worst riots in US history, prompted by the May 25 death of George Floyd.<\/p>\n

The riots \u2014 which broke out after a video went viral showing police pinning Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, to the ground for nearly nine minutes before he died \u2014 caused an estimated $2 billion in damage.<\/p>\n

Though Target made no mention of the riots in its announcement, last summer I noted that an abundance of evidence suggested that the economic damage of the riots would persist long after the wreckage had cleared.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon Miltimore explains why the Target corporate headquarters in Minneapolis will be given up — for reasons that go beyond the claimed success of the telecommuting encouraged by the 2020 pandemic lockdowns: Target Corporation, the eighth largest retailer in the United States, announced in an email to employees on Thursday that it will be leaving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,25,13],"tags":[95,489,742,159],"class_list":["post-64656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economics","category-usa","tag-jobs","tag-minnesota","tag-rioting","tag-shopping"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-gOQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64657,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64656\/revisions\/64657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}