EAGAN, Minn. - The former headquarters of Northwest Airlines sat empty on its 190 acre campus Tuesday. Airliners on their flight path that once looked down on the big "N" on the roof, now see a bare surface.
A few miles away at the Minneapolis/Saint Paul International Airport, a kind of "love in" was underway for most of the 12,000 Minnesotans still employed by the airline that merged with Northwest and submerged the trademark red tails in 2010.
Delta handed out $27 million in profit-sharing checks to its Minnesota workforce. It was part of $264 million given to employees system-wide. The money came from the $1.2 billion profit Delta made in 2011 as the world's largest airline.
"One of the things that I want to point out is that we believe that every penny of this is deserved by these employees," said Bill Lentsch, Delta Senior Vice President of Minnesota Operations. "These are the best employees in the business and the level of operational reliability and safety in performance that they turned in last year and the way that they took care of the customer was just astounding."
Lentsch chatted, joked and shook hands with many of the approximately 1,700 Delta employees who visited the airline's Lindberg Terminal Mezzanine offices to pick up their checks and enjoy a spread of food for them.
There have been some unpleasant days as Delta downsized its Minnesota workforce and property holdings after the merger. Once there were 1,000 workers in the Eagan headquarters offices alone. The workforce in Minnesota totaled more than 25,000. However, Northwest had a contentious relationship with their unions, occasionally leading to bitter strikes.
Part of the deal in which the Metropolitan Airports Commission loaned Northwest Airlines $350 million required that Northwest, now Delta, employ at least 10,000 people in Minnesota. However, that obligation ended when Delta repaid the loan in December of 2011.
Delta is obligated to maintain hundreds of flights in and out of MSP International Airport. It exceeds the minimum number of flights required. Delta is the major carrier for Minnesota's largest airport.
Tuesday, smiles abounded as the profit-sharing checks were handed out.
In Eagan, Christopher Hickok, Executive Vice President of Industrial property marketer Jones, Lang, Lasalle, considered the task of selling the former Northwest campus.
"The asking price, last summer, was $34 million. We (Jones, Lang, Lasalle) came out, last fall, about $24.5 million and last week we knocked it down to $17 million," said Hickok.
He sees the building as a bargain at about $31 per square foot for the 275,000 square feet of space, not including adjacent land. There is also the nearby, equally large, simulator building where Northwest trained pilots and crews for themselves and other airlines. 21 multi-million dollar cockpit simulators are being moved to Georgia.
"By the end of this year, they will be completely out of the building," said Hickok. Then it, too, can be sold.
Delta is willing to sell all 190 acres intact, or to sell off smaller parcels of the property. Hickok pointed out that there are few corporations in the Twin Cities in need of such a large space. "But somebody is going to get it, a very good value," said Hickok. "To build one of these buildings would be in excess of $150 a foot."
Hickok said there has been just one offer in the last three months, but that offer is a potential purchaser.
Delta could be offering more profit-sharing in the future. The airline has issued profit-sharing three times in the last five years, according to Delta Media relations.
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