The Northstar Center in downtown Minneapolis was purchased for about $62.7 million by a New York investment firm, according to a certificate of real estate value available Thursday.

The center, which takes up a block between 6th and 7th streets and Marquette and 2nd avenues, is one in a slew of recent downtown buildings to change hands in recent months.

The retail and office complex, along with the adjoining 222-room Crowne Plaza Hotel, had fallen into foreclosure late last year. The previous owner, Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm PCCP, defaulted on its mortgage and owed about $64.8 million, according to a public notice published last November.

An entity associated with New York-based Taconic Capital Advisors closed later on the sale in mid-December.

PCCP had purchased Northstar in 2007 for a little more than $62 million. In 2016, major tenant Wells Fargo & Co. moved out of the complex to its own towers near U.S. Bank Stadium. There has been talk of converting part of the Northstar Center into an apartment tower.

Taconic Capital declined to comment Thursday.

Dml - Star Tribune, Star Tribune
United Properties sold off a portion of Gaviidae, the building where it now has its headquarters, to another real estate investment firm.

In another transaction, local developer United Properties has sold part of the floors it owned at Gaviidae Common in downtown Minneapolis for about $24.5 million. The sale includes the location of the Walgreens pharmacy along Nicollet Mall.

United Properties, which last year moved its headquarters from Bloomington to the fourth floor of Gaviidae on Nicollet Mall and 7th Street, sold the first and second floors of the retail and office building. In addition to Walgreens, those floors are currently occupied by North Memorial health clinic and the Orthology physical therapy clinic, said company spokeswoman Sheila Thelemann.

The space was formerly a Saks Off 5th before the clothing store relocated across the street to City Center in 2016. United Properties had purchased that portion of Gaviidae in 2014.

The buyer of the property is an entity called KB Minneapolis, according to an electronic certificate of real estate value available this week. KB Minneapolis appears to be affiliated with Las Vegas-based Kingsbarn Realty Capital.

United Properties continues to own the third and fourth floors of the building, which it dubbed "7th & Nic" where its 17,000-square-foot headquarters is located and it still has unleased space for potential tenants.

Last month, the YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities opened its $30 million five-level center at Gaviidae.

Earlier this month, Marquette Plaza sold for $88.4 million.

In February, the Capella Tower and adjoining Star Tribune Building were sold for $255 million. The $258.5 million sale of the Fifty South Sixth building was publicized in January.

Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495