Commercial Real Estate
We represent parties involved in every aspect of real estate development, ownership, and finance, both in Minnesota and across the country. We are committed to helping our clients complete their projects and transactions as quickly and cost-effectively as possible by providing responsive, skillful, and efficient advice and service. We are able to do so because we combine the personal, client-centered approach of a smaller law firm with the breadth of experience one might find in a real estate practice group at a large law firm. But, unlike a large firm real estate practice group that typically handles the occasional real estate issues faced by non-real estate companies, we predominantly represent companies and individuals whose primary business and expertise is real estate.Indeed, we routinely represent every kind of real estate industry participant, including lenders and borrowers, buyers and sellers, landlords and tenants, developers, contractors, and design professionals. We believe this breadth of experience benefits our clients. We serve commercial clients on small, mid-size, and large transactions, ranging from $500,000 to several hundred million dollars.
Our areas of experience include:
Development
We routinely represent developers of projects such as office and office-warehouse buildings, office/light industrial business parks, shopping centers and other retail projects, and single and multi-family residential developments. We assist our clients with all facets of a development project, including the formation of ownership entities, land acquisition, zoning and land use issues, tax planning, the preparation of construction and design contracts, environmental diligence and remediation, and tax increment and other governmental sources of financing.
Some projects our clients have developed include:
Office
- Normandale Towers in Bloomington, Minnesota, containing approximately one million square feet of office space
- Carlson Towers in Minnetonka, Minnesota, containing approximately 580,000 square feet of space
- The Minnesota Department of Revenue building in Saint Paul, Minnesota
- Two suburban office buildings containing approximately 500,000 square feet in the Boston, Massachusetts area
- Plymouth Business Center, an approximately 715,000 square foot office/ warehouse project in Plymouth, Minnesota
- Colonnade Building in Golden Valley, Minnesota
Retail
- A number of shopping centers throughout Minnesota, including Gaviidae Commons, Ridgedale Marketplace, Rosedale Marketplace, Rosedale Commons, Burnsville Marketplace, and Midway Marketplace
- A number of grocery store-anchored strip centers in Minnesota, Iowa, and throughout the upper mid-west
- Many strip shopping centers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, such as the Main Street Crossing center in White Bear Lake, Plymouth Collection, Eagan Station, and Eagan Town Centre
- Many free-standing retail stores in Minnesota and throughout the country
Residential
- The Carlyle, a 39-story residential tower in downtown Minneapolis
- Grant Park, a 27-story residential tower with adjacent townhomes in downtown Minneapolis
- Melrose Apartments, a nine-story student apartment building near the University of Minnesota with over 900 units
- Broadway Plaza, a 26-story apartment complex in downtown Rochester, Minnesota
- The Reserve, a 118-unit condominium project in the warehouse district of Minneapolis
- A large number of single family home and townhome developments, both in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and in greater Minnesota, including Emerald Ridge and Emerald Woods in Minnetonka; Gladstone, a 300-acre development in Maple Grove consisting of both single-family and townhome neighborhoods; Summerfields; Enclave; Cedar Green; and Cedar Lake Place
- Many senior citizen and tax credit housing projects in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, including St. Andrews Village, Cottages of Aspen, Cottages of Hillcrest, and Black Hawk Trail
Acquisition and Sale
Many of our clients are sophisticated real estate investors. We counsel our clients on all aspects of their transactions, including entity formation, acquisition, tax planning, financing, property management, and disposition. Some projects we have assisted our clients on include:
Office
- A number of downtown office buildings in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including the Wells Fargo Center in St. Paul, the Stinson Technology buildings just north of downtown Minneapolis, which contain more than 500,000 square feet of office space, the 510 Marquette building and the Towle building
- Many suburban Twin Cities office, office-warehouse, and industrial properties, including the Lexington Corporate Center, Triad Office Building, and the Shoreview Corporate Center
- A number of office-research properties in the San Francisco Bay area, including a number of buildings in the Stanford University Research Park, in Mountain View California, and in San Jose, California
- Five office buildings in Texas, California and Oregon, which our client acquired as a portfolio from a major developer and sold as a portfolio
- The Farmland cooperative headquarters office building in Kansas City, Missouri
Retail
- The Ridgedale Festival Mall in Ridgedale, Minnesota
- Wal-Mart stores throughout the country
- Northtown Mall in Blaine, Minnesota
- Seventh Place Retail in St. Paul, Minnesota
Residential
- The Calhoun Beach Club, a large luxury apartment project near downtown Minneapolis
- Large apartment projects in the Twin Cities and Rochester, Minnesota
- Seventh Place Apartments in St. Paul, Minnesota
- The Estates at Canyon Ridge, a 270 unit garden style apartment community in San Antonio, Texas
- Cimmaron Ridge, an apartment community in Aurora, Colorado
- Student housing projects in Auburn, Alabama, and Gainesville, Florida
Railroad
- The sale by the United States Postal Service to the Ramsey County Regional Rail Authority of a portion of the former Union Depot rail station in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota
- A 43-mile short-line railroad running from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Hutchinson, Minnesota
Land
- The purchase and sale of many parcels of land throughout Minnesota and across the country for office, retail, warehouse, and residential development
Warehouse
- Many suburban office-warehouse properties in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area
- The Plastics, Inc. manufacturing center in Eagan, Minnesota
- The Toro distribution facility in Lakeville, Minnesota
- The Fisher Nut facility in St. Paul
- Seven buildings in Minnesota, Texas, California, Indiana, Tennessee, and Maryland acquired as a portfolio from a major developer
Lending
Another significant portion of our practice consists of representing lenders making real estate loans. We represent both large and small lenders, including U.S. Bank National Association, Associated Bank, National Association, BMO Harris Bank, Dougherty Funding LLC, TCF National Bank, PNC Bank, National Association, and The PrivateBank and Trust Company. We assist our lending clients with both construction and term loans. In addition to serving as lead counsel to a number of Minnesota-based lenders, we also frequently serve as local counsel to out-of-state lenders and borrowers on projects in Minnesota. In addition, we assist our clients to restructure troubled real estate projects. A few projects our clients have financed include:
Office
- Construction of the 930,000 square foot Bancorp Building in downtown Minneapolis, the new headquarters for U.S. Bank
- Acquisition and redevelopment of the Health Partners headquarters building in Bloomington, Minnesota
- A $150,000,000 revolving line of credit to a large developer
- Construction of the Crescent Ridge Office project in Minnetonka, Minnesota
- Construction of the Amazon.com headquarters in Seattle
Retail
- Construction of Arbor Lakes, a large retail and office development in Maple Grove, Minnesota
- Construction of a number of Life Time Fitness health clubs in Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Arizona, and Texas
- Construction of several HOM furniture stores in Minnesota
Industrial
- Construction of an ethanol processing and production facility in Stanley, Wisconsin
- Construction of the Summit Brewing facility in St. Paul, Minnesota
- Commercial/Warehouse
- Construction of a 425,000 square foot warehouse and distribution facility in Seattle, Washington
Residential
- Construction of the 430-acre Wild Meadows residential project in Plymouth and Medina, Minnesota
- Construction of the Dexter Apartments in Seattle, Washington
Hospitality
- Construction and permanent lending for a large number of Super 8 motels throughout the country
Leasing
We assist many landlords and tenants in leasing office, retail, and warehouse properties. We handle all kinds of real estate leasing transactions in Minnesota and throughout the country. Some projects for which we have done leasing work include:
Office
- The IDS Center in Minneapolis
- One Financial Plaza in Minneapolis
- The Kinnard Financial Center in Minneapolis
- The Towle Financial Center in Minneapolis
- Plymouth Business Center in Plymouth
- The 510 and 520 Marquette buildings in Minneapolis
- Several multi-tenant office-research properties in the San Francisco Bay area collectively containing approximately 1 million square feet of space
Retail
- Northtown Mall in Blaine, Minnesota
- Burnsville Marketplace in Burnsville, Minnesota
- Rosedale Marketplace and Rosedale Commons in Roseville, Minnesota
- Ridgehaven Mall, in Minnetonka, Minnesota
- Burnhaven Mall in Burnsville, Minnesota
- 7-Hi Mall in Minnetonka, Minnesota
- Marlton Mall in Marlton, New Jersey
- Laurel Village in Minneapolis
Warehouse
- A substantial number of suburban office-warehouse projects in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area
- A 300,000 square foot distribution facility in Lakeville, Minnesota
- A 200,000 square foot manufacturing and distribution facility in Eagan, Minnesota
- A portfolio of 14 buildings in Houston, Dallas and Austin, Texas
Environmental
We frequently assist our clients in purchasing, cleaning up, redeveloping, and financing projects with environmental concerns.Projects in the Twin Cities involving environmental issues that our clients have been involved with include:
- The Schnitzer Iron and Metal Company facility
- The Drake Marble building in St. Paul
- The Kopper's Coke superfund site
- The Amhoist superfund site
- The Mobil Oil blending facility
- The Wards Midway property, in St. Paul
Tax Appeals
We routinely help commercial property owners throughout Minnesota appeal tax and other special assessments.
Condemnation and Relocation Benefits
We often represent property owners in condemnation cases, right of access cases, pipeline acquisitions, and inverse condemnation cases. We also represent businesses in obtaining relocation benefits in condemnation cases. Our client in one such case, a manufacturer, was forced to relocate in connection with the construction of the Science Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota. We helped our client obtain the largest relocation award ever paid by the City of St. Paul.
Other
In addition, we also assist our clients with such routine real estate law matters as title registrations, boundary disputes, adverse claims to title, and drafting and enforcing easements.