After finalizing the sale of its St. Paul main campus earlier this fall, Luther Seminary announced on Wednesday that it will relocate to downtown Minneapolis at the end of the 2026-27 academic year.

The seminary said it has signed a long-term lease with River Parkway Place, owned by Arcadia and located at 1101 W. River Parkway, starting on July 1, 2027.

“Today’s announcement represents the culmination of a tremendous amount of discernment,” said Luther Seminary President Robin Steinke in a statement. “None of the decision-making around this beloved campus — our home for more than a century — has been easy. At the same time, it’s clear that the fulfillment of our mission is calling us to a new chapter in a new space.”

River Parkway Place sits adjacent to Gold Medal Park, the Mississippi River and the Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis. The seminary will occupy the third and fourth floors of the building and will house its library on the first floor.

RSP Architects will design the seminary’s new classroom, office and community spaces in River Parkway Place; renovations and construction will take place over the coming months, prior to an anticipated move in July.

The new site features a “more consolidated footprint for the seminary’s daily operations, a large atrium space for worship and special events, and the technological infrastructure needed to modernize the learning environment while supporting the seminary’s growing portfolio of digital ministries,” the seminary said.

Housing for residential students, including international students, will be offered at nearby Augsburg University.

“We reviewed dozens of potential properties over the last year,” Steinke said in the statement. “On paper, we knew that River Parkway Place fit our space requirements. But when we visited and saw the proximity to the river, the nearby green space and access to transit, the walkability of the neighborhood and our new worship space, we knew we had found Luther Seminary’s next home.”

The seminary announced the sale of its 16-acre upper campus to Valerian Como LLC in September, following a decision by its board of directors in 2025 to seek new, more flexible space in the Twin Cities.

A final sale of the seminary’s lower campus properties in St. Paul and Lauderdale has not yet been announced and seminary officials continue to work with a broker on the sale of the two parcels.

In recent years, enrollment has shifted toward distributed learning options, changing the seminary’s need for and use of physical space. Today, the seminary reports, 76% of students primarily engage online while working in churches and ministries in their local communities.

The seminary is an accredited graduate school of theology currently based in St. Paul’s St. Anthony Park neighborhood. It was founded in Afton in 1869 as Augsburg Seminary and moved to St. Paul in 1893.

Valerian Como will continue to operate the St. Paul upper campus as an educational institution with the existing buildings and facilities and has no plans to demolish them, according to seminary officials.