Twins Video
"I'm so sick of defending myself, my credibility, my family, I should just sell the {expletive} team. There's a limit."
—Carl Pohlad
In 2021, the RBC Gateway became the new gem of the Minneapolis skyline. Years in the making, and developed with all private capital—no special tax district needed—it brought a Four Seasons to downtown. This particularly excited Mayor Jacob Frey, who was sick of seeing artists play venues like First Avenue and immediately hop on a plane back to Chicago.
But just above the hotel was office space that needed to be filled. Several businesses moved in there: United Properties, a real estate building company owned by the Pohlads; Northmarq, a real estate finance company owned by the Pohlads; Carousel Motor Group, an automotive group owned by the Pohlads; and even the Pohlad Family Foundation, which, you get the drill.
Practically every business owned by the Pohlads relocated from the suburbs into this new place downtown, which, if you hadn’t guessed, was built by United Properties. Of course, 2021 was an interesting time considering how most businesses were in a panic about their downtown real estate, assuming workers might never return to the office.
For more on the history of the Pohlad family and their business interests, please see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4, of this series.
In our final piece, I wanted to explore why the Pohlads are selling. When editor Matt Trueblood proposed this series, our goal (in part) was to try and understand how other business ventures of the Pohlads might explain why they operated the Twins as they did. Now that a sale is at least in the works, this final piece looks at the origin of the sale. As much as they would insist otherwise, the Twins have made the Pohlads rich beyond what Carl could have ever dreamed when he forked over $38 million. But even if the streaming and cable network bubble chaos has made the business less lucrative than it could be, the reasons for selling seem to go far beyond that. Instead, the real estate world has taken an unwelcome turn, and the Pohlads are desperate, to use their own language, “right-size our business.”
As the Pohlads moved out of banking and bottling, real estate became the prime business. They acquired United Properties in 1998, mostly focused on suburban office parks. It was “poised” to build commercial real estate following the 2008 crash as a set of new jobs in major suburban spaces came to replace older companies. From 2016-18, no company developed more real estate in Minnesota than the Pohlads'. Like many similar companies, United has relied on moving toward “mixed-use” building, meaning properties might include high-rise condos as part of its broader commercial use.
Like many real estate builders, United has often relied on tax credits and incentives to build. This includes the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company Building ($1.8 million). A better example is Kenwood Village in Duluth. In order to ensure United Properties would build the complex, the city council handed United Properties $2.8 million in tax relief on United’s $21 million investment, despite research from the County suggesting it should take no more than $10 million. When United sold the enterprise to a New York firm for $21 million, St. Louis County valued the cost of the property at $8.34 million. When it opened, Kenwood Village had the highest prices for studio apartments in the entire Duluth area.
Another vision of United’s public-private “partnerships” comes in the continuing drama of the Upper Harbor Area, which was sold by the city to develop parks, affordable housing, and an outdoor venue run by First Avenue in 2017. Lawsuits have ensued, and financing has been slow to get going. The property has remained controversial, with the city spending over $350 million in 2021 despite United and others technically owning the underlying real estate. The city recently learned that it may be able to retain the venue in full control. And despite all the promises of affordable housing, United’s main developer has recently suggested it may not succeed.
But the real problem for United has been its bet on the downtown area. In 2021, United was able to sell both Gateway and Gaviidae Common on Nicollet Mall. However, reports suggest these deals came at prices below their true value. With interest rates soaring due to Jerome Powell’s attempts to hurt worker power and unionization drives during 2021 and 2022, real estate transactions became harder. Office vacancies remained particularly high into 2023, though a series of punishing return-to-work policies from various companies have attempted to level the playing field for developers.
In a profile covering the Pohlads from 2022, United’s CEO Bill Katter suggested, “The city is going to find its way to a new set of priorities and a new norm. How do we make places people want to return to? The Pohlads want to help create that future.” Four days after Katter made these comments, he left the organization.
The next venture for United is to transition to senior living, one of the most lucrative and exploitative industries at the moment. United is currently building a $40-million senior living center, which will give 147 individuals amenities like “a pet wash station, a bike repair station, yoga studio and saunas, art studio, hobby shop, library and clubhouse.” This would triple the amount of assets it has or is building in the sector. According to one report, “Senior housing accounted for just 9% of the value of United's long-term holdings three years ago, with the rest being a mix of industrial, office and retail properties. [Newly appointed CEO] Matt Van Slooten expects that figure to increase to about 40%.”
To back up these moves in new directions, the Pohlads have always relied on Northmarq, a firm that does financing and brokerage for real estate investments. In 2024, they were the sixth-largest intermediary for real estate deals in the nation. In 2023, the company made deals and sales worth around $22 billion. In 2024, S&P Global raised its rankings as a commercial private loan company.
To give just a flavor, it has sold a 97-unit property in Baltimore ($54 million), 17 acres near Phoenix ($14.5 million), and three manufacturing properties in the Pacific Northwest ($14.3 million). That said, more and more deals by Northmarq appear to be those where they are mere brokers, rather than something they themselves acquire. They’re passing money between hands, but not gaining it themselves.
The business is changing though. Northmarq recently acquired Morrison Street Capital, which specializes in investment management to fund real estate deals. Whether that means just investing in Fortune 500 companies or, say, cryptocurrency, is for the future to decide.
Notably, perhaps, United and Northmarq haven't been plagued by the dramatic conflicts with regulators or competitors that marked so many of the Pohlads' earlier ventures. They've been involved in a few lawsuits, but there's nothing as salacious or as shady as several of the things that happened under Carl Pohlad in his various ventures in other sectors.
United has come under scrutiny for foregoing unionized workforces, despite the owners' Progressive bona fides. Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) is trying to stop such working abuse. But this is ultimately small potatoes compared to the stories we could tell about Carl. The last two decades have been good for real estate developers, and thus good for the Pohlads. But like the end of the RSN payday, that bubble is popping. Most of the talk in the real estate world is about being more targeted. You can learn on the Northmarq website how to target success. As Van Slooten pointed out, United has survived because they “are able to develop properties with our own equity” as well as “selectively start several projects with our capital,” which is to say, when you have billionaires, you sometimes can get a head up in the real estate game by having access to capital when others do not. And with federal interest rates still high, a quick cash infusion—say around $1.5 to $2 billion—might be able to do the job.
But sometimes you might have a little pain. In November of this year, Bob Pohlad quietly put his RBC Gateway Condo inside the Four Seasons up for sale. Bought for $4.3 million, it might sell for only $4.5 million.
If you asked a casual Minnesota sports fan about the Pohlads, you would probably get an answer about how often they've felt nickeled and dimed. It always felt so silly—when you have access to billions, why not waste a little to break a silly curse and create a generation of new fans? But the truth is, the Pohlads aren’t being cheap on their teams to spend it on other businesses. Being cheap is the way the Pohlads have always done business.
There’s no guarantee of a new owner changing the system or infusing cash, and there’s even more to worry about if the new owners have little to no connection to the state where the team plays.
But that’s the truth about private ownership in sports: They get to run it, and you don’t. And unless you fight for a different system—one where we can all invest into a team—the only thing you can scream is “Sell the Team.”
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