DES MOINES, IA—The Principal Financial Group has just hired the Iowa office of JLL as its new exclusive leasing agent for 801 Grand, the city's tallest, largest and most iconic office building. The 44-story, 970,000-square-foot tower forms part of Principal's 2.5-million-square-foot headquarters. The firm currently occupies about two-thirds of the building while the rest of the campus undergoes a refit.

Although Principal and its tenants occupy about 96% of the building, Heath Bullock, a JLL senior vice president and Iowa markets leader, tells GlobeSt.com that “four or five percent of this building is still a decent amount of space to market. We're currently working on four transactions which would speak for a lot of the vacant space.”

Furthermore, Principal is about two years into its campus refit, and as it finishes up over the next three years, Bullock says more space could open up as employees relocate back into the other buildings. “This property serves the high-end of the office market in Des Moines and Iowa. It commands higher rents and has a class A appearance and class A amenities,” and he expects a great deal of interest from financial services firms, law firms and IT providers.

Located at the corner of Grand and High streets in the heart of downtown, 801 Grand was designed by HOK Architects and opened in 1991. The building's amenities including three full-service restaurants, a coffee shop and juice bar, a Bank of the West branch, adjacent covered parking, a hair salon and shoe shine service.

Since 2011, JLL has served as facility manager for Principal's portfolio of more than 150 owned and leased offices throughout the US and in more than 15 countries throughout Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America, and will continue to manage 801 Grand under the direction of general manager Carissa Schmidt.

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Brian J. Rogal

Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.