Although its geographical territory is the third largest of the 12 Federal Reserve banks, it serves the smallest population base of the system.

The Bank publishes The Region, a magazine featuring articles about economic policy and interviews with famous economists.

The first building for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve bank is located at 510 Marquette Avenue, at the corner of Marquette Avenue and 5th Street South in Minneapolis, right next to the Nicollet Mall station of the METRO Blue and Green light rail lines, and across from the Soo Line Building.

After the Fed moved to its second building in 1973, the new owner, a partnership of New York developers, Peter V. Tishman and Jay Marc Schwamm, had the lower portion covered with something that was a better match to the skyscraper "hat" on top.

The 3-foot-thick (0.91 m), windowless, lower floors were stripped of the granite and replaced with a "bird cage" limestone facade (designed by Minneapolis architect Robert Cerny) and a totally artificially sustained natural 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) garden of ficus trees and pools of water (designed by San Francisco landscape architectural firm of Lawrence Halprin).

Design problems, along with asbestos contamination, led the Federal Reserve to decide to move into a new complex and sell the old structure.

Designed by architecture firm HOK, a complex along the Mississippi River now serves as home to the Minneapolis Fed, which moved there in 1997.

It is located on the site of the former Minneapolis Great Northern Depot adjacent to the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and the Pacific sawmill once owned by T. B. Walker and George A.