Yamasaki-designed Minneapolis insurance HQ to become hotel

Developer Chad Tepley plans to convert the Minoru Yamasaki-designed Northwestern National Life Insurance Company headquarters in Minneapolis into a 165-room hotel. Purchased in November for $7.1 million, the building at 20 Washington Avenue South will feature a ballroom, pool deck, 17,000-square-foot patio atop the portico, and a restaurant along the reflecting pools. Tepley walked a KARE 11 crew through the empty lobby on April 20. The building, completed in 1965, was originally an insurance headquarters for 500 employees, including a medical department. The company later became ReliaStar, ING, and Voya Financial, which moved out in 2023. Yamasaki described the design as "a park with a building in it," with a portico meant to be looked through, connecting to Lawrence Halprin's pedestrian mall. The building's history includes Yamasaki's later regret over Pruitt-Igoe's demolition in 1972 and security retrofits after 9/11. The hotel conversion is slated for 2028, pending financing and historic tax credits.