A building designed around how your business actually runs.
A build-to-suit is a building designed and constructed for one occupier, who commits to a lease before construction begins. Inventure guides clients through every phase of build-to-suit, sale-lease-back and redevelopment projects, from understanding your organization’s needs to coordinating thoughtful design and final delivery.
You describe the operation. We deliver the building.
In a build-to-suit, the building follows the business rather than the other way round. The occupier commits to a lease, the developer carries the project through design, entitlement and construction, and the occupier moves into space that was specified for their operation instead of adapted to it.
Inventure’s development service covers that whole arc. Whether you are developing raw land or transforming an existing property, the work runs from understanding your organization’s needs through coordinating thoughtful design to final delivery.
Understand the operation
What the building has to do before anyone draws it. The needs come first.
Coordinate the design
Architect and engineering coordination against those needs, not against a template.
Build it
Design build delivery with the contractors and architects Inventure has worked with across its own portfolio.
Hand over the keys
Final delivery, and in several cases Inventure holds the asset and leases it back to the occupier.
Four buildings, and what each one had to solve.
Every figure below is published on Inventure’s own project record.
RE/MAX Results of Andover
A ground up, lease back office building at 2677 Bunker Lake Boulevard NW, built for a brokerage Inventure had already partnered with on a high end bank conversion in St. Cloud. It holds 40 offices, four conference rooms, a large training room and an expansive closing office behind a glass and metal panel exterior. A high density rock wool outsulation assembly and comfort management systems give it energy performance well beyond standard office construction. Inventure owns the asset and leases it back to RE/MAX Results for its northwest metro operation.
CentraCare Square
CentraCare Health Systems needed to relocate its Dialysis Unit, Wound Center and Home Care operations out of St. Cloud Hospital without leaving the campus area, and the only viable site carried a building that could not serve medical use. The team razed the original structure and built new on the existing intact foundation, specifying a high efficiency VRF system, natural light and soft finishes around the comfort demands of dialysis patients. The building sits less than a mile from the hospital and remains fully occupied by CentraCare Health.
Quinlivan & Hughes, PA
A corporate headquarters at 1740 West St. Germain Street for a long established St. Cloud law firm that could not find the downtown visibility or the purpose built space it needed in existing inventory. The site was the former Granite Bowl, a city landmark built in 1940 that closed in 2010, and the existing site conditions qualified the redevelopment for TIF and DEED credits that made the economics work. The original structure was demolished and replaced with a modern building carrying traditional design undertones, an efficient floor plan and capacity for future growth.
Pinnacle Climate Solutions
Inventure acquired the facility at 1660 13th Avenue NE and completed a renovation built to the tenant’s specifications. The hi-bay warehouse configuration supports racking capability competing Central Minnesota properties could not offer, backed by a precast superstructure with a metal bar joist roof system, located near County Road 1 for trucking access across the country. A large rooftop solar system was developed as part of the project, giving the tenant a green energy operating benefit. The asset is held by Inventure on a single tenant long term lease with on site expansion opportunities remaining.
A build-to-suit is still a construction project.
Inventure’s owner’s representation service runs from entitlements and architect coordination to contractor oversight and final delivery, acting as your eyes and ears on the project site. The firm has been an owner’s advocate on projects from 12,000 to 170,000 square feet, and its CEO has been on the construction side of the table since 1989 and the owner’s side since 2000.
Build-to-suit, answered plainly.
What is a build-to-suit lease?
A build-to-suit lease is an agreement where a developer constructs a building to an occupier’s specification and the occupier commits to lease it, usually signing before construction begins. The developer typically retains ownership and the occupier takes a long term lease on space designed around their operation.
Who owns the building in a build-to-suit?
The developer usually retains ownership and the occupier leases. Inventure has done exactly this: it owns the RE/MAX Results of Andover building it developed in 2017 and leases it back to RE/MAX Results, and it holds the Pinnacle Climate Solutions facility on a single tenant long term lease after renovating it to that tenant’s specifications.
Build-to-suit or buy an existing building?
It depends on whether existing inventory can do the job. Quinlivan & Hughes went the build-to-suit route because the downtown visibility and purpose built headquarters they needed did not exist in the available stock. CentraCare had the opposite constraint: the only viable site already carried a building that could not serve medical use, so it was razed and rebuilt on the existing foundation.
What does a build-to-suit cost per square foot?
It varies with use, specification and site. Inventure publishes a figure for one of its own: the RE/MAX Results of Andover office building was delivered in 2017 at a project valuation of $242.11 per square foot. Medical, industrial and office all carry different cost structures, so the only honest answer for your project comes after the requirements are defined.
How long does a build-to-suit take?
Longer than leasing existing space, because design, entitlement and construction all have to happen before anyone moves in. The schedule is set by the approvals your site needs and the complexity of the specification rather than by a standard timeline, which is why the work starts with understanding the operation before anything is drawn.
Does Inventure build outside Central Minnesota?
Inventure is rooted in St. Cloud, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota. Its completed projects run from St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids to Andover and Eagan in the Twin Cities metro.
Tell us what the building has to do.
Start with the operation and the requirements. The drawings come after.
