Project Overview
Mueting Raasch Group, a Minneapolis intellectual property law firm, had outgrown its longtime home at Mill Place. NTH ran the firm’s search, negotiated a long term lease at 111 Washington Square, and then managed design, construction, furniture, and the move into a purpose-built 12,300-square-foot office. The result is a floor configured around how patent attorneys actually work – private offices for focused drafting, paired with the conference, collaboration, and wellness space the old office never had.
The Challenge
An IP firm’s space needs are unusually rigid: nearly every attorney requires a private, acoustically sound office, which leaves little room to absorb growth by densifying. Mueting Raasch had been at Mill Place since 2006, and the building could no longer accommodate the firm’s projected headcount. The 111 Washington deal was negotiated around 10,505 square feet on the sixth floor – and then, months before construction, firm growth and updated projections showed that footprint would be too small on day one. Reopening the deal risked both the negotiated economics and the commencement date. A larger floor also had to be demised for multiple tenants, adding a corridor no one had budgeted for.
How We Made It Happen
NTH built the program first and used it both to test buildings and to structure the term sheet: competitive net rent with modest annual escalations, appropriate gross free rent, and a healthy improvement allowance with flexibility on how it could be applied. When the headcount revision landed, NTH reopened the deal and moved the firm to 12,300 square feet on the seventh floor while holding every negotiated economic term with a strategy to solve for the demising corridor. NTH then ran the general contractor RFP and interviews, selected Gardner Builders alongside designer ESG, tracked change orders against contingency, reviewed invoices against the allowance before payment, and coordinated furniture, cabling, AV, signage, and a phased move.
The Outcome
Mueting Raasch Group moved into their dynamic new space at 111 Washington Square on schedule with total project costs coming in below the approved budget.
