Just Sold: Homebuilder adds school to Cologne development

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Editor’s note: “Just Sold” is a Finance & Commerce feature based on certificates of real estate value recently filed for commercial transactions and significant residential transactions in Twin Cities counties. Additional details in the transactions come from Plat Research, the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office, company documents, online real estate listings, F&C archives, CoStar and other research. Some purchase prices and per-unit calculations have been rounded; precise purchase prices are listed on the CRVs, which are available here.

1221 S. Village Parkway, Cologne

Hans Hagen usually builds and sells new homes through his namesake company, Fridley-based Hans Hagen Homes Inc. This month, however, he closed on the $6.8 million sale of his first school.

Hagen said in an email interview this week that when he proposed the Village at Cologne residential community in 2005, the city of Cologne asked that the plan include land for an elementary school. Hagen did the city one better, collaborating with parents in and around the city to create Cologne Academy, a public charter school that opened in 2008 and now serves 459 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Hagen established Partnership for Better Education LLC, which built the original elementary school and subsequent additions, leasing the space to the school. Now, after complicated negotiations involving Hagen, the school, the city and financial underwriter Piper Jaffray, the city is acting as a conduit for a school bond issue of $13 million to buy the existing school and a final 33,138-square-foot addition planned for next spring.

With the bonds in place, Cologne Academy Building Co., an entity school leaders created to hold the property, acquired the existing school for $6.8 million, with no money down and a new mortgage. The sale closed Nov. 12, according to a certificate of real estate value made public the same day.

With enrollment expected to grow to 600 within a couple of years, school leaders now are planning a final $5 million addition to house a theater and gymnasium. Minneapolis-based Architectural Consortium LLC, which designed the rest of the campus, designed the addition.

Purchase price: $6,820,714.78

Price per square foot: N/A

Property ID: 40-4510010; 40-4400010; 40-4450020

Date of deed: 11-12-14

ECRV released: 11-12-14

1550 Summit Ave., St. Paul

1549 Grand Ave., St. Paul

Description: Fully leased, 48,324-square-foot church and school, built in 1949, and separate parking lot

Buyer: High Winds Fund, Macalester College, St. Paul

Seller: The Church of St. Thomas More, St. Paul

Purchase price: $4 million cash

Price per square foot: $82.77

The transaction: The High Winds Fund of Macalaster College has paid $4 million to acquire a three-story school building that’s right next to its St. Paul campus but serving students far too young to enroll in its classes.

The cash deal includes the former Immaculate Heart of Mary church and school building at 1550 Summit Ave. and a parking lot directly to the south, at 1549 Grand Ave. The lot serves the school building and nearby businesses, many of which are in buildings owned by High Winds.  The cash sale closed Nov. 17, according to a certificate of real estate value made public Nov. 18. The price for the 48,324-square-foot building works out to $82.77 per square foot but the long-term value is in the land, said Tom Welna, director of High Winds.

“An acre of land doesn’t come up very often … maybe every 50 or 100 years or so,” he said of the heavily developed neighborhood. And developers were starting to talk about using that land for new projects — which would have eliminated the much needed parking lot, Welna said.

The one party that didn’t need the property was the seller, The Church of St. Thomas More, located a few blocks east at 1069 Summit Ave. St. Thomas More, formerly St. Luke’s Church, serves the new congregation created by the consolidation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and St. Luke’s churches.

The college has no plans to change the building, which now is leased to Laura Jeffrey Academy, a public charter school, and Highland Park Montessori School.

The High Winds Fund was established in 1956 through a gift from DeWitt Wallace to fight urban blight and provide stewardship to the neighborhood around the campus.

Last sale: N/A

Property ID: 03-28-23-32-0072/0078/0079/0080

Date of deed: 11-17-14

ECRV released: 11-18-14

706 and 715 S. Ninth St., Minneapolis

Description: 31 studio apartment units in a low-rise building built in 1915 and a separate parking lot

Buyer: Empire 706 LLC, Fridley, an entity related to Meridian Management Inc., Mendota Heights

Seller: Douglas A. Quasnick, Lindstrom

Purchase price: $1.05 million, with a $448,117.71 down payment and a new mortgage, part of a 1031 exchange.

Price per unit: $33,871

The transaction: Micro-apartments may sound new, but Mendota Heights-based Meridian Management Inc. has paid $1.05 million for 31 micro-units in a Downtown East Minneapolis apartment building that greeted its first tenants in 1915.

Empire 706 LLC, a Fridley-based investment entity related to Meridian owner Stuart Simek, acquired the building at 706 S. Ninth St. and a parking lot at 715 S. Ninth St., from Douglas A. Quasenick, of Lindstrom. The garden apartment building, located in the Elliott Park neighborhood, includes studio apartments ranging from 300 to 500 square feet.

Simek closed on the acquisition Nov. 13, according to a certificate of real estate value made public Nov. 14. The price works out to $33,871 per unit. The average sale price per unit for apartments in the Twin Cities metro area is $84,371, according to the Finance & Commerce online Apartment Sales Tracker. The tracker has recorded the sale of 16,897 apartment units since Aug. 31, 2011.

Last sale: Quasnick paid $260,000 in 1995

Property ID: 26-029-24-23-0024/0038

Date of deed: 11-13-14

ECRV released: 11-14-14