business

Dougherty Commercial Properties, a Minneapolis-based real estate investment firm, recently completed the purchase of five Twin Cities-area office and industrial properties from Des Moines-based Principal Financial Group. The price of the transaction, a joint venture with JRK Birchmont Advisors of Los Angeles, was not disclosed.

The office and industrial buildings include City West Financial Center and Eden Woods Business Center in Eden Prairie, 55 West Financial Center in Plymouth and Cedar Business Center and Olympia Business Center in Bloomington.

The purchase was the first in the Twin Cities for Dougherty, which was formed last year by Bob Angleson, formerly president of the real estate investment arm of Welsh Companies, and Mike Dougherty, founder of the investment banking firm of Dougherty & Co. Previous investments have been in Indianapolis and Davenport, Iowa.

Angleson said the firm wants to focus on office and industrial properties in the Midwest, but is also scouting properties in the Southeast, including markets in North Carolina and Florida.

The five buildings in the Twin Cities total almost 450,000 square feet, with an overall occupancy of 85 percent. Angleson said that fits the investment firm's criteria of buying properties that are 75 to 90 percent occupied. "That gives us the opportunity to get a good return by leasing up a little," he said.

Weyerhaeuser Co. has hired the Twin Cities office of CB Richard Ellis to sell about 680 acres of timberland near Emily, Minn., about 30 miles north of Brainerd.

The property is listed at $3,000 an acre, or slightly more than $2 million total.

The land is about 3 miles south of Emily just off Hwy. 6, with direct access via Tower Road. The location would make the property suitable for a variety of uses, including hunting, recreation and existing or future logging activity.

The property is one of several land parcels and buildings put up for sale by the forest products company, which is based in Federal Way, Wash. Weyerhaeuser said last month that it would book pretax charges of $300 million to $325 million in the second quarter for impairments related to its real estate business.

The company said the impairment resulted from decisions to lower prices or abandon projects in response to the continued deterioration of the housing market.

Susan Feyder • 612-673-1723