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Our History

Breaking new ground since 1897

1897 J.L. Robinson Company founded, Minneapolis
1902 Goodfellow's Dry Goods Co., Minneapolis flagship operation that is today known as Target Corporation
1907 St. Thomas Hospital, Minneapolis – first hospital in the Fairview Health system
1913 Chemistry Building, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
1921 Standard Oil Stations—a 1921 building permit shows the owner as "John D. Rockefellow" [sic]
1929 Robinson retired and sold the company to Mathew Kraus and Amos Andersen, who renamed the company Kraus-Andersen and later, Kraus-Anderson
1933 Lloyd Engelsma joined Kraus-Anderson as estimator and office manager
1938 Lloyd Engelsma purchased Kraus-Anderson
1943 Defense projects including Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, built Kraus-Anderson's business and helped the U.S. win World War II
1949 KSTP-TV, Minneapolis-St. Paul, became the first television station in the Upper Midwest
1949 Christ Lutheran Church, Minneapolis – Eliel Saarinen's simple, modern design has influenced church design for more than half a century
1951 Miracle Mile Shopping Center, St. Louis Park, MN, became the Twin Cities' first suburban shopping center
1955 Lutheran Brotherhood, Minneapolis, became the city's first modern office building downtown since 1930, and its first modern curtain wall building
1955 Methodist Hospital, St. Louis Park, Minnesota – Lloyd Engelsma partnered with hospital planners including financier Carl Pohlad to build the first hospital in the west suburbs of Minneapolis
1958 McDonald's, St. Louis Park, MN – strategically located across the street from Park High School, Mickey D's first foray into Hennepin County was a hit
1961 Southtown Shopping Center – Bloomington's largest shopping center (at the time) was anchored by the largest Montgomery Wards department store in the nation
1969 Metropolitan Medical Center, Minneapolis – Lloyd Engelsma and Kraus-Anderson were instrumental in facilitating the merger of Swedish and St. Barnabas hospitals
1970s Maui Hill Condominiums, Hawaii, expanded Kraus-Anderson's growing real estate portfolio
1972 Control Data Corporate Headquarters, Bloomington – engineered an innovative slipform technique to speed the construction of the supercomputer complex, built to accommodate 2,500 employees
1972-79 Kraus-Anderson launched diverse operations, including Kraus-Anderson Insurance (1972), Kraus-Anderson Mortgage (1973), Kraus-Anderson Realty (1978), Kraus-Anderson Advertising (1979), each designed to build on Kraus-Anderson's efficiencies.
1976 Cargill Office Headquarters, Minnetonka, Minnesota – this early example of a master-planned corporate campus is situated in a beautiful wooded locale
1980 Pillsbury Center, Minneapolis – this double office tower project was expedited through careful coordination of workers and resources within one square block of busy downtown Minneapolis
1983 The Mountainside at SilverCreek, Granby, Colorado – this 4,000-acre development became Kraus-Anderson's third timeshare property, and its first outside of Hawaii
1985 Canterbury Downs, Shakopee, Minnesota – teamwork helped Kraus-Anderson to the on-time completion of the 390-acre racetrack complex just 15 months after being selected as contractor
1986 Fountain Lakes, Estero, Florida – this 365-acre residential community comprises single-family homes, villas and apartments
1988 Ceresota Block renovation, Minneapolis – transformation of vacant grain elevators to upscale hotels and housing spurred on the Mississippi Riverfront Renaissance that continues to this day
1988 3M Research Facility, Austin, Texas – phase I included a 1.5 million-square-foot laboratory, 300,000-square-foot office and tunnel on a 162-acre site
Since 1991 Metropolitan Airports Commission – Kraus-Anderson has provided construction management services on over 400 Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport projects, totaling over $1.4 billion in construction value
1992 Lions Research Laboratory, University of Minnesota – this research facility launched the U's groundbreaking bioscience corridor and was the first of three such facilities built by Kraus-Anderson
1992 Macy's, Mall of America – Kraus-Anderson built the largest of MOA's four anchor tenants
1995 Park Nicollet Tower Place – healthcare, retail, restaurant and entertainment venues successfully converged at this early example of inspired mixed development
1997 Lloyd Engelsma retired, naming his son Bruce Engelsma Chairman and CEO
1999 Phillips Eco-Enterprise Center, Minneapolis – This showroom facility won an Earth Day 2000 Award and became a pilot project for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a program of the United States Green Building Council
1998 Cabela's Owatonna, MN – this store began the outdoor outfitter's successful nationwide retail expansion
2000 Lawson Commons, St. Paul – The office building's successful completion brought the software company to downtown St. Paul, becoming a catalyst for economic revitalization
2000 Woodwinds Health Campus, Woodbury, MN, became a national model for patient-centered care
2001 ADC World Headquarters' campus reflected the broadband technology company's leading-edge perspective
2003 Westwood Elementary School, Zimmerman, Minnesota became the first LEED-certified school in the state
2004 St. Paul Winter Carnival Ice Palace – battling record warm temperatures, Kraus-Anderson led the team of over 3,000 volunteers to complete the palace in just 19 days, on time for half a million visitors.
2005 Thief River Falls Joint Operations Facility – first state building to incorporate B3 standards
2005 Bet Shalom, Minnetonka, MN – tradition and modern ingenuity blend in this facility featuring a flexible sanctuary space and movable wall panels
2005 Swedish Institute Solarium, Minneapolis – sensitive restoration to the historic structure brought it back from the verge of collapse
2005 3 Scimed Place, Boston Scientific – Kraus-Anderson has built multiple projects for the bioscience firm
2006 Vanguard Group, Scottsdale, AZ – this office building, the first built to LEED standards in Arizona, was built for repeat client Liberty Properties, Inc.
2008 Cub Foods, St. Paul – the first LEED-certified grocery in the Cub Foods chain was constructed for longtime client SUPERVALU
2008 Taconite Ridge, first commercial wind energy center in northeastern Minnesota
2010 U.S. Port of Entry, Warroad, Minnesota, was recognized with a national Government Services Administration Design Awards Construction Citation
2010 Lloyd Engelsma was inducted into the Minnesota Real Estate Hall of Fame by the Shenehon Center for Real Estate at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business for outstanding business performance coupled with a high standard of ethics and sense of community. See video.
2011 The Sanford Center, Bemidji, Minnesota – the 193,000 square-foot arena and convention venue positions Bemidji for major conferences and national acts; and provides a home for Bemidji State University hockey
2011 University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital was completed according to Green Guide for Healthcare standards

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Breaking new ground since 1897