For more than 50 years, FirstService Residential has been part of the Twin Cities condominium landscape, helping boards navigate changing market conditions, evolving resident expectations, major building projects, and the countless decisions that shape a community's future. Over those decades, both the city and its high-rise communities have changed dramatically. Today, many boards are facing a new level of complexity.
Not long ago, managing a high-rise condominium community was often viewed as a mostly operational responsibility. Boards focused on maintaining the building, preparing annual budgets, overseeing vendors, and responding to resident concerns as they arose.
Today, that role looks very different.
Across the Twin Cities Area, many high-rise communities are reaching a new stage in their lifecycle. Buildings constructed decades ago are facing major capital projects, aging infrastructure, evolving resident expectations, and increasing financial complexity. At the same time, boards are navigating a market that is becoming more competitive, with new property management companies entering the space and others expanding beyond their traditional areas of expertise into high-rise condominium management.
Yet managing a high-rise community requires a unique combination of operational oversight, financial stewardship, capital planning, vendor coordination, and building systems knowledge that differs significantly from many other types of association management. As a result, boards are increasingly evaluating whether a management company's experience aligns with the realities of high-rise living.
For board members, this creates an important question.
When evaluating a management partner, is it enough to find a company that can manage the day-to-day operations of a building? Or should boards be looking for something more?
The communities best positioned for the future are increasingly asking a different question: who has the experience, local knowledge, and operational depth to help us navigate what comes next?
Why high-rise communities are becoming more complex
Managing a high-rise community today is very different than it was even a decade ago.
Many condominium buildings throughout the Greater Minneapolis Area were constructed in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. While many have been well maintained, aging infrastructure inevitably creates new challenges. Elevators, mechanical systems, building envelopes, parking structures, and other critical assets require significant investment, careful planning, and ongoing oversight. What were once routine operational conversations are increasingly becoming long-term strategic decisions.
At the same time, boards must balance reserve funding, capital planning, operating costs, and homeowner expectations while responding to residents who expect greater transparency, faster communication, and convenient technology. The result is a role that extends far beyond day-to-day building operations.
Today's boards are helping shape the financial health, resident experience, and long-term value of their communities in ways that previous generations of board members may never have anticipated.
Experience isn't just a nice-to-have
Many management companies can handle routine operations. Far fewer have spent decades helping boards navigate major capital projects, aging infrastructure, emergency situations, changing regulations, and the long-term decisions that can impact a community for years to come.
This is especially true in the high-rise environment, where a single decision can carry significant operational, financial, or resident implications. A mechanical system failure, building envelope project, elevator modernization, reserve funding decision, or unexpected emergency may require more than a standard property management approach. It often requires practical experience, established vendor relationships, and leadership teams that have encountered similar situations before.
That experience becomes even more important as new firms enter the market and others begin expanding into the condominium and high-rise space. While every company starts somewhere, boards should consider whether their management partner has experience with the unique realities of high-rise living, or whether they are still building that expertise.
For many boards, the question isn't simply who can manage the building today. It's who can help guide the community through the challenges and opportunities that may arise tomorrow. And in a changing market, that distinction matters more than ever.
Why local experience matters
For high-rise boards, experience isn't measured in years alone. It's measured in the challenges a management partner has helped communities navigate.
Every market has its own unique characteristics, and Minneapolis is no exception. From aging condominium towers and evolving regulatory requirements to harsh winters, trusted vendor relationships, and large-scale capital projects, local knowledge often plays a meaningful role in how quickly and effectively challenges can be addressed.
“Every high-rise community has a story, and every building presents its own challenges. Local experience helps boards navigate those challenges with greater confidence. When you've spent decades working with condominium communities throughout the Minneapolis market, you've seen what works, what doesn't, and how to help communities prepare for what's next.”
Broc Coen, president of FirstService Residential Minnesota
When a major building system fails, a construction project falls behind schedule, or an unexpected issue emerges, boards benefit from working with professionals who understand the local landscape and have encountered similar situations before. Relationships developed over decades with contractors, engineers, service providers, and industry partners can help communities move forward with greater confidence.
Local experience also provides perspective. Management professionals who have worked within the Minneapolis condominium market for years understand how community needs have evolved, what challenges are becoming more common, and where boards should focus their attention in the years ahead. That insight can help boards move from reacting to issues as they arise to planning proactively for the future.
This is one reason many boards continue to value long-standing market presence. While new firms continue to enter the high-rise space and others expand into condominium management, experience gained over decades cannot be replicated overnight. It is earned one community, one project, and one board partnership at a time.
Preparing Minneapolis boards for what's next
The responsibilities facing high-rise boards today are unlikely to become simpler. Aging infrastructure, capital planning, financial stewardship, resident expectations, and operational complexity will continue to shape the decisions communities make in the years ahead.
As boards evaluate association management partners, experience should remain an important consideration. Not simply how long a company has been in business, but the types of communities it has served, the challenges it has helped solve, and the local expertise it brings to the table.
For more than 50 years, FirstService Residential has partnered with condominium communities throughout the Greater Minneapolis Area, helping boards navigate periods of growth, change, and uncertainty. Today, that experience is supported by enhanced financial management, dedicated client success leadership, resident support resources, and one of the region's deepest portfolios of high-rise communities.
The future will bring new challenges and new opportunities. The goal isn't to predict every one of them. It's to ensure your community is supported by a partner with the experience, local knowledge, and resources to help navigate whatever comes next.
Because the question isn't who can manage a building today. It's who can help a community prepare for tomorrow.
This information is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute, and should not be relied upon as, legal, regulatory, financial, or operational advice, or as a representation or guarantee of any specific services, capabilities, or outcomes. Property management needs, regulatory requirements, market conditions, and available services vary by jurisdiction, property type, and community. FirstService Residential provides services through locally based affiliates and associates, and services and results may vary by community, region, contractual terms, and applicable law.