Retailer to buy part of St. Paul Macy’s

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Just over a year after paying $3 million for the shuttered downtown St. Paul Macy’s store, the St. Paul Port Authority may be ready to make back most of its initial investment in the building.

The Port Authority will vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to sell a 25,570-square-foot portion of the 363,000-square-foot store to NLD Wabasha LLC, which plans to convert the space into an unnamed two-story retail store along Wabasha Street.

“A successful development on this site will greatly enhance St. Paul’s downtown, create jobs and will improve downtown’s tax base,” Lee Krueger, senior vice president of real estate and development for the Port Authority, wrote in a staff memo.

NLD Wabasha would pay $2.5 million for the space, or about $98 per square foot. All but about $1 million of that price would be due at closing.

The Port Authority declined to share any details about the potential retailer. NLD Wabasha LLC isn’t registered with the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.

The store is at 411 Cedar St., on the northwest quadrant of Sixth Street and Cedar Street. Xcel Energy Center is about four blocks southwest of the property, and the Central Station on the Green Line light rail route is about a block southeast.

Macy’s left the building in March 2013. The Port Authority staff recommends approval of the sale.

“This sale will bring in end users that will supplement the existing public and private sector investment,” Krueger wrote in the memo. “This is a market-driven transaction, and will complement what the Port Authority will be undertaking with the remaining portion of the building.”

The retail store could join the Minnesota Wild hockey team inside the reinvented building. The team confirmed in February that it was in early talks to take over an unannounced amount of space in the vacant building.

Along with the retail space, a health club has also been a rumored potential use for part of the building.

The hockey facility would likely include an ice rink and locker rooms, at the very minimum.