In November, Duke-Weeks opened Norman Pointe, a 212,000-sf , seven-story office buildings on the southwest quadrant of Highway 100 and Interstate 494 in Bloomington, MN. The lead tenant in that building is Rooster.com, a business-to-business company organizedby a consortium of agribusinesses such as Cargill and Cenex Harvest States. Rooster.com is leasing about 30,000 sf. But so far, the building is just 40 percent leased, says Jim Gray, senior vice president and general manager in charge of Duke-Weeks' Minneapolis office. "We have a lot of good prospects," Gray said. "But with the economy slowing, people seem to be slowing their decision-making down."

Duke-Weeks also opened 1600 Tower at its Minneapolis West Business Park in St. Louis Park. The 250,000-sf, nine-story office building has as its anchor March First, a Web consulting business that has taken about 58,000 sf. Duke-Weeks is also taking about 15,000 sf for its local offices. While the building is about 25 percent occupied, Duke-Weeks has an "excellent backlog" of prospective clients. Duke-Weeks bought the Minneapolis West Business Park from MEPC about a year ago.

While Duke-Weeks has no plans to build any more office buildings in the Twin Cities in the immediate future, it is close to announcing plans for several industrial properties, including two build-to-suit projects and two speculative projects. The company recently opened Apollo III, a 211,000-sf project in Eagan, MN, with its main tenant a records storage firm called Iron Mountain.