Deluxe Corp. is moving its corporate headquarters from Shoreview to downtown Minneapolis.
The company is moving to 801 Marquette Building in the heart of the central business district. About 525 employees could move downtown when the space is ready in the fall of 2021.
The move signals Deluxe’s continued evolution from a printer of checks and business forms to a provider of a growing list of small business services including payments, cloud services, promotional solutions and checks. The company also is building a new financial technology center in Atlanta.
“Moving to downtown Minneapolis is an exciting next step, helping accelerate our transformation while deepening our community commitment,” said Deluxe Chief Executive Barry McCarthy. “Our new headquarters will offer our employee-owners access to everything downtown offers including walkable amenities, robust public transportation, warm hospitality venues, engaging entertainment and a spirit of innovation and optimism.”
The move was announced at a downtown press conference with Deluxe officials, as well as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minneapolis City Councilmember Lisa Goodman and other business leaders.
“Today’s announcement means hundreds of jobs will not only stay in Minnesota, they will be in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. The move will help maintain downtown Minneapolis’ vibrancy and will help our entire state prosper,” said Walz in a news release.
The number of people working in downtown Minneapolis in 2019 was 218,325, up more than 6% since 2017 according to the Minneapolis Downtown Council. Downtown has been changing over the last few years with more hotel rooms and a greater mix of downtown residents. According to the Council the resident population in downtown is 51,288, a 60% increase since 2006. As part of their 2025 Master Plan the Council hopes to increase the resident population to 70,000 by then.
Among those new residents is McCarthy. He and his wife purchased a historic downtown loft and are completing renenovations on the space.
The announcement from Deluxe comes at a time when the vibrancy of downtown has been dulled in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Deluxe is the midst of a review of its real estate holdings. A couple years ago it had 84 locations and stated it would close approximately 40. McCarthy stated the successful work-from-home shift due to COVID has accelerated that review. Deluxe now expects to 20 location this year, some of which closed in the second quarter, and others will be closed by the end of 2020.
Last week Deluxe also announced plans for a new financial technology center in Sandy Springs, Georgia just north of Atlanta that would include 700 jobs, with an average salary of $91,500.
McCarthy said Deluxe will have three major locations: Minneapolis as its headquarters; Kansas City its home to major manufacturing operations and call centers; and Atlanta which will serve as base for product, application development, technology and strategy for its payments and cloud services.
McCarthy was in the Atlanta area Wednesday to make the announcement with local and state leaders.
“We believe that there is great value in having co-located product management, application development, strategy etc. around our two real growth engines for the company payments and the cloud,” McCarthy said.
A goal of the new space in Atlanta, McCarthy said, is to accelerate collaboration within Deluxe and to enable collaboration with customers on new products and ideas the market will demand for future success.
Deluxe Corp., is over 105 years old and best known as a check and business forms printer, but it has gradually added a mix of small business services including electronic payment services, small business marketing and promotion services, and cloud based web hosting services.
Deluxe has more than 6,300 employees and currently has about 200 employees in Georgia.
The new financial technology innovation and customer experience center in Sandy Springs will be 172,000 square feet and is estimated to be open in early 2021. The location is less than 10 miles north of downtown Atlanta and among a cluster of fin-tech companies and financial technology agencies and association in the area.
McCarthy said they did a national search for a new location for its payments business but quickly settled on the Atlanta area.
“Atlanta is known broadly as one of the major financial technology centers in the U.S.,” McCarthy said. ” The state has a done a tremendous amount to support financial technology companies. As evidence of that the University of Georgia system has created an entire fin-tech curriculum.”
According to a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Economic Development the state has invested heavily in attracting fin-tech companies to the area and in its education system to prepare students for new jobs in the industry.
“Roughly 160,000 people work in cyber-related industries in Georgia, and more than 41,000 students are currently enrolled in cyber-related majors in the University and Technical College Systems of Georgia,” the spokeswoman said.
“Georgia is a global leader in fintech and payments, and the Deluxe expansion is a welcome addition to the state’s first-class ecosystem of industry leaders,” said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in a news release.
The space will accommodate 700 employees including a mix of existing Deluxe employees and new hires.
The renovated office space will be built out with COVID precautions, McCarthy said, including more flexible work spaces and greater spacing for employees.
“We feel lucky to be doing this now,” he said. “because we have the opportunity now to configure for the future.”
Deluxe’s annual revenue is about $2 billion and for 2020 itittititistarted reporting results in four new business segments: Payments; Cloud Solutions; Promotional Solutions and Checks. The latter two segments are the largest by revenue, but Payments has the fastest estimated market growth.
McCarthy said the payments segment is roughly a $300 million per year business with healthy profit margins that grew revenue 18% in the first quarter and 13% in the second quarter despite the interruptions from the coronavirus.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which first reported the story, the community of Sandy Springs will waive $255,000 in permit and building license fees for the project. Deluxe did not disclose any other state and county economic development incentives.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics but the state and local governments were very aggressive in courting us and this opportunity,” McCarthy said.