A paper trail is leading Rochester's IRS office across Broadway to a new, more easily accessible home.
After 22 years tucked away on the third floor of the Brackenridge Skyway Plazaat 21 Second St. S.W., the Internal Revenue Serviceis starting the paperwork to scoot eastward to the City Centrecommercial complex.
A building permit application filed last week says the IRS is setting up space on the second floor of the City Centre at 310 S. Broadway.
That means it will share the floor with the Dittrich & Lawrencelaw firm. Mayo Clinicalso confirmed last summer that its has tentative plans for about 5,000 square feet on that level.
Rochester developer Joe Weisbuilt the complex in 2008. A skyway connecting the building to the next-door hotel, Holiday Inn, was added last spring.
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The building permit application lists the value of the construction work on the IRS office at about $215,000.
Details about the project are unclear, but unofficial sources say it will probably be several months before the tax office moves.
When asked about the changes, IRS staff at the Rochester office said they are not allowed to comment. The Minnesota IRS office passed questions about the move to the General Services Administration's office in Chicago.
The GSA media expert in Chicago is on leave, so a staffer in Washington, D.C., is working to track down information about the Rochester office's move of a few blocks within the downtown.
Its current office space encompasses much of the third floor of the Brackenridge Plaza. That puts it a level up from Newt's Express in the skyway.
The tax agency moved into about 5,100 square feet of space there in 1990 when it left the nearby Broadway Hallbuilding at 102 S. Broadway. At the time, the office had 22 people working there.
And federal forms have been flying there ever since.
The Rochester office covers 11 southeastern Minnesota counties from the Mississippi River to Interstate 35 and north as far as Red Wing.
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Biz buzz
Earlier this month, I reported that Sand Lodging, Inc., of Waite Park, Minn., purchased the Country Inn and Suiteshotel at 77 Wood Lake Drive S.E. in Rochester for $4.26 million.
I didn't mentioned then that Sand plans to renovate the 104-room hotel and to hire more sales staff "to take better care of their clients and greater community involvement."
So look for those changes to check in soon along Rochester's south corridor.
Sand, which owns 20 hotels across the U.S., has five other County Inn hotels in Minnesota as well as one Holiday Inn. This is its first hotel in Rochester.
