There is a 57story tower in downtown Minneapolis.

It is called the Wells Fargo Center.

It is the third tallest building in the city and it just sold for $85 million.

That sounds like a lot of money.

But here’s the problem.

The same building sold for $314 million in 2019.

That is a 70% decline in value in just 5 years.

This is not just a story about one building losing value.

This is a story about what happens when a city and state drive away the businesses that built them.

This is the story of Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.

Let me take you back to the beginning.

In 1872, a group of Minneapolis businessmen founded Northwestern National Bank.

It was one of the first major banks in the region.

For over a century, that bank grew.

It became Northwestern Bank Corporation.

Then it became Norwest Corporation.

And Norwest was headquartered right here in Minneapolis.

By the 1990s, Norwest had become a powerhouse.

The bank had operations across multiple states.

It had billions in assets, and it employed thousands of people in the Twin Cities.

Then came 1998.

In 1998, Norwest merged with Wells Fargo in a deal worth $34 billion.

Here’s what most people do not know.

Norwest was actually the buyer.

Minneapolis-based Norwest acquired the California-based Wells Fargo, but the combined company kept the Wells Fargo name because it had better brand recognition.

And here is what hurt Minnesota.

Even though a Minneapolis company bought Wells Fargo, the headquarters moved to San Francisco.

The executives made a business decision.

California was the better place to be headquartered.

Minneapolis lost control of the bank it built.

To be fair, Wells Fargo kept a massive presence in Minnesota.

At its peak, Wells Fargo employed over 20,000 people in the state.

About 18,000 of those jobs were in the Twin Cities alone.

That made the Twin Cities the second largest concentration of Wells Fargo employees in the entire country.

The bank was downtown Minneapolis’s second largest employer.

In 2014, Wells Fargo made a huge commitment to Minneapolis.

The company invested over $300 million to build two new office towers in downtown East.

The project was part of a $400 million redevelopment near the new Viking Stadium.

It was the largest single office project in downtown Minneapolis since Capella Tower opened in 1992.

Wells Fargo was going to bring 5,000 employees into those new towers.

Mayor RT Ryback celebrated the deal.

He said he had personally encouraged Wells Fargo to stay in Minneapolis instead of moving to the suburbs.

He pointed the company toward the Star Tribune land that became the downtown east site.

It looked like Minneapolis had won.

The city had kept a major employer downtown.

But then the problem started.

Wells Fargo began a slow, steady retreat from Minneapolis.

The layoffs came in waves.

In 2013, the bank cut 356 jobs from its mortgage division nationwide.

34 of those cuts were in Minneapolis.

In 2019, Wells Fargo eliminated 400 jobs at a Twin Cities customer service center.

And that was just the beginning.

When CEO Charlie Sharf took over in 2019, he announced the company would cut between 5 and 10% of its entire workforce.

That meant at least 10,000 jobs nationwide, potentially 25,000 or more.

Minnesota was not spared.

By 2020, estimates suggested Wells Fargo could cut up to 4,000 jobs in the Twin Cities alone.

The bank that once employed 20,000 people in Minnesota began shrinking rapidly.

Layoffs hit every division.

Mortgage operations, customer service, technology, management.

The numbers tell the story.

When Charlie Sharf became CEO, Wells Fargo had nearly 280,000 employees worldwide.

Today, that number is around 216,000.

That is a reduction of over 60,000 jobs.

Minnesota felt those cuts deeply.

In 2023, Wells Fargo announced it was consolidating its Twin Cities locations.

The company would leave its home mortgage campus in South Minneapolis.

It would abandon its office space in St.Louis Park.

Employees were told to report to just three locations, two in downtown Minneapolis and one in Shore View.

The bank that once had 7,000 employees spread across 14 buildings in downtown Minneapolis was shrinking its footprint dramatically.

And the layoffs kept coming.

Look at what happened to the Wells Fargo Center building.

In 2019, it sold for $314 million.

In 2024, the county assessed its value at $174 million.

Then in December 2024, it sold again.

The price was just $85 million, a 70% decline in 5 years.

The building is now only 62% leased.

That means over a third of the third tallest building in Minneapolis is sitting empty.

This is what decline looks like.

And here is the question nobody in city hall wants to answer.

Why would any company want to expand in Minnesota? Minnesota now has the highest corporate tax rate in the entire country at 9.8%.

When New Jerseys temporary searchcharge expired, Minnesota took over the top spot.

The state literally has the worst corporate tax rate in America.

But it gets worse.

The Tax Foundation ranks Minnesota 44th out of 50 states in its business tax climate index.

On the corporate tax component specifically, Minnesota ranks 47th.

That is third from the bottom.

Only two states have a worse corporate tax structure than Minnesota.

In 2023, the Minnesota legislature raised taxes by nearly $10 billion over four years.

Despite having an $18 billion budget surplus, Democratic lawmakers decided to make Minnesota even more expensive for businesses.

They added new taxes on global income.

They reduced deductions.

They created new mandates.

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has been sounding the alarm for years.

Their reports show that Minnesota has become less competitive while other states use their surpluses to cut taxes.

Iowa reduced its corporate tax rate from 12% to 5.5%.

Pennsylvania is phasing in reductions.

Tennessee has no corporate income tax at all.

Minnesota went the opposite direction.

And what has Mayor Jacob Frey done about it? When it comes to the corporate exodus from Minneapolis, when it comes to Wells Fargo cutting thousands of jobs, the mayor has been focused on other priorities.

He has made no significant public effort to address the business climate driving companies away.

The silence from city hall has been deafening.

Meanwhile, the jobs keep leaving.

Wells Fargo has been shifting work overseas.

Employees report that positions are being moved to India and the Philippines.

American workers in Minneapolis are training their overseas replacements before getting laid off.

The pattern is clear.

High taxes, heavy regulations, a state government that sees businesses as piggy banks rather than partners.

And the result is predictable.

Companies scale back.

They move jobs elsewhere.

They find states that actually want them.

Think about what Minneapolis has lost.

Norwest Corporation was a Minneapolis company.

Minneapolis executives built it over more than a century.

Then the merger happened and the headquarters went to California.

Now the jobs are going to India.

What exactly did Minneapolis get out of this deal? The Wells Fargo Center tells the whole story.

A trophy building that once symbolized Minneapolis’s financial strength now sits one-third empty.

Its value has collapsed.

Its anchor tenant is shrinking.

And the city cannot seem to figure out why businesses are leaving.

Other cities would be fighting for these jobs.

Texas would offer incentives.

Florida would cut taxes.

Tennessee would roll out the red carpet.

What is Minnesota offering? The highest corporate tax rate in America.

What is Minneapolis offering? Downtown streets that companies no longer want to occupy.

The Wells Fargo situation is part of a larger pattern.

Target has pulled back from downtown.

A TNT left its 34story tower.

Honeywell is long gone.

One by one, the companies that built Minneapolis are scaling back or leaving entirely.

And the politicians in St.Paul keep raising taxes.

The politicians in Minneapolis keep focusing on everything except the business climate.

And the workers keep losing their jobs.

Wells Fargo once employed over 20,000 people in Minnesota.

The company invested $300 million in downtown Minneapolis.

It built gleaming new towers.

It committed to keeping jobs in the city and now it is leaving slowly, steadily, one layoff at a time.

The 57story tower still stands on 7th Street.

It still has the Wells Fargo name.

It still has the beautiful rotunda designed by Caesar P, but it is 38% vacant.

Its value has collapsed, and the jobs that once filled it are disappearing.

This is what happens when you take businesses for granted.

This is what happens when you have the highest corporate tax rate in America.

This is what happens when your leaders focus on everything except creating a place where companies want to be.

Minneapolis built one of the great banks in American history.

Norwest Corporation was a Minnesota success story.

Over a century of growth right here in the Twin Cities.

That is the Wells Fargo story.

That is the Minneapolis story.

And until something changes, it will keep happening.

The irony is painful.

Governor Tim Walls has launched campaigns to attract businesses to Minnesota.

He talks about being a top state for business, but the data tells a different story.

Minnesota ranks 44th in business tax climate.

It has the highest corporate tax rate in the nation.

You cannot attract businesses while punishing them with the worst tax rates in America.

The 2023 legislative session was a perfect example.

Democrats controlled the governor’s office, the state house, and the state senate.

They had complete power.

And what did they do with an $18 billion surplus? They raised taxes by nearly $10 billion.

They made Minnesota even less competitive.

Compare that to what other states did.

Iowa used its surplus to cut taxes dramatically.

Their corporate rate went from 12% to 5.5%.

South Dakota cut its sales tax.

Tennessee continues to thrive with no corporate income tax.

Minnesota raised taxes.

That is the fundamental difference.

Wells Fargo employees in Minneapolis now live in fear.

Every few weeks, another round of layoffs hits.

Every quarter, more positions get shipped overseas.

The employees who remain describe a culture of constant anxiety.

Nobody knows who is next.

And where is the outrage from state leadership? Where is the effort to make Minnesota competitive again?