Best Buy announced plans earlier this year to become the latest large Twin Cities corporation to build its own corporate campus. The consumer-electronics retailer plans to leave its current headquarters complex here and will spend $150 million to build 1.5 million sf of office space on the redevelopment site in Richfield at I-494 between I-35W and Penn Avenue. Construction is slated to begin in the spring of 2001, and the new corporate headquarters will be complete by summer of 2002.

But the proposed project, which requires assistance from the city of Richfield to relocate several businesses and dozens of homes, has drawn opposition from some neighborhood businesses and residents. Partly in response, the company hired Anton, Lubov & Associates of Minneapolis to study the economic impact of the campus. According to the study, the campus will generate about $7.3 million in property taxes beginning in 2003. Some of that money will go to build a new bridge over Penn Avenue, while some of it will go to fund new housing construction and remodeling programs.

The study also notes that when Best Buy relocates, there will be 5,500 more employees in the city, a 35% increase. Moreover, the $150-million development will generated $187 million in economic activity, creating 3,800 full-time construction jobs during the building phases.