David Patchin has been named development director for the commercial group of the two regions, a newly created position. The senior executive spent 15 of his 20 years in financing commercial real estate with Chicago-based LaSalle Bank, which has a policy in place not to comment on current or former employees.

As Forest City's new man on the ground in Minneapolis, Patchin will be scouting for sites and overseeing construction and leasing groups in a start-to-finish approach for each project. Patchin tells GlobeSt.com that there are "two or three sites that I am working on right now to develop some retail mixed-use projects" in the Minneapolis area. But, that's all that can be said until the plans get further along. The Cleveland-based Forest City, which has completed more than $9 billion of development nationwide, is looking at its first development in the Twin Cities region.

Patchin and the Forest City team, though, have had a long-time business relationship. He says the development giant was one of his clients when he was at LaSalle Bank.