Wells Fargo exiting south Minneapolis home mortgage building, St. Louis Park offices

Wells Fargo plans to sell its massive home mortgage campus just south of downtown Minneapolis, a move that follows the bank’s decision to scale back its U.S. home loans business.

The state’s second-largest bank will also move out of leased offices in St. Louis Park as it continues to shrink its real estate footprint. The decisions come after a shift in strategy earlier this year that refocused its home-lending business on existing customers rather than winning new ones.

Wells Fargo remains one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders. The Minneapolis home mortgage office — situated on the former Honeywell headquarters site at E. 26th Street — has served as a signpost to downtown since the early 2000s, highly visible to anyone driving on Interstate 35W.

Its sale will reduce Wells Fargo’s physical presence in the Twin Cities. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo merged with Minneapolis-based Norwest Bank in 1998. Despite Norwest being the surviving entity of the combined company, the bank retained the better-known Wells Fargo name — as well as its California headquarters.

Wells Fargo says it has no intentions of leaving the Twin Cities area entirely.

“Wells Fargo is committed to the Twin Cities area as an important market and employment center,” Laura Oberst, a Twin Cities area market leader for the bank, wrote in a message to employees. “We are confident that bringing teams together in these improved and modernized spaces can help build a culture focused on customers, collaboration, strong risk management and innovation.”

The bank notified employees of its plans to relocate workers — starting before summer — to spaces in downtown Minneapolis and Shoreview. Staci Schiller, a company spokeswoman, said the transition should be complete by mid-2024.

The bank laid off hundreds of mortgage bankers in late February. Schiller said that while there have been layoffs in the mortgage division in recent months, this office consolidation isn’t a part of that. Instead, she pointed to the bank’s multiple office spaces, which are under-utilized.

Like many employers, Wells Fargo moved to a hybrid model for its corporate employees following a period of fully remote work during the pandemic. The company now asks employees to be in the office at least three days a week.

“We want our employees in spaces that are occupied and vibrant,” Schiller said, adding that employees also said they want…