St. Louis Park-based Big River Real Estate has paid $30.33 million for a portfolio of 1970s and 1980s industrial buildings in Edina and Eden Prairie -- a product type that's "not being built today," according to a Twin Cities broker involved in the deal.
Gonyea Commercial Properties sold the buildings to Big River, Ryan Mallery, Big River's CEO & fund manager, confirmed in an email to Finance & Commerce. The buildings are in the Golden Triangle area near Highway 169 and Valley View Road.
Mallery said the deal closed Nov. 7.
Built between 1971 and 1983, the buildings have a combined 309,095 square feet of space, according to property listings and Hennepin County records. The sale price breaks down to about $98 per square foot.
Included in the portfolio are properties at 6925-6953 Washington Ave. S. and 6955-6973 Washington Ave. S. in Edina, and 6820-6848 Washington Ave. S., 7150-7174 Shady Oak Road, 7115-7149 Shady Oak Road, 7202-7224 Washington Ave. S., 7242-7264 Washington Ave. S. and 7340 Washington Ave. S. in Eden Prairie
Mallery said the buildings are about 98% leased. Big River plans to tuck-point and paint all the buildings next spring and summer.
"We're excited to have purchased this portfolio in our fourth private equity real estate fund," Mallery said in an email. "It is very well located and super functional small bay industrial real estate. We brought in a capital partner to increase diversification and leverage our operating platform."
Big River Real Estate worked with Bridgewater Bank on the acquisition. Mallery said the Bridgewater folks "really rolled up their sleeves to make this work for us" amid a debt environment that's "getting better but still challenging."
"After 20 years working hard to try to build and maintain meaningful relationships in the TC industry, one of the things that really felt like a success was how those relationships came into play and helped us win and close on this acquisition. It was a very competitive process and I'm proud of how the team really rolled up sleeves and dug in to make it happen."
Bentley Smith and Judd Welliver of CBRE represented the seller in this transaction.
"We saw tremendous interest in this offering with 22 first-round offers," Smith said in an email. "Investors were attracted to the A+ location and the fact that this product type is not being built today. Industrial remains the preferred asset class and our optimism for industrial capital markets going into 2025 remains very high."
The Golden Triangle buildings are part of the Southwest submarket, which has a 5% vacancy rate, according to CBRE.
The transaction comes on the heels of other notable industrial sales this fall.
In October, Boston-based company Stag Industrial paid $43.1 million in cash for the 360,000-square-foot Lakeville Logistics Center, a recently built warehouse at 21601 Galway Lane in Lakeville. Oppidan was the seller. The deal works out to about $119.7 per square foot.
Also in October, as previously reported, Centaur Capital Partners paid $46.7 million for five warehouses in Brooklyn Park, Plymouth, Bloomington and Eden Prairie. Link Logistics was the seller.
Welliver told Finance & Commerce in October that the buildings are part of a 12-property warehouse portfolio, which traded for about $130 million. Also included in the portfolio are properties in Mendota Heights and Shakopee.