Butcher & the Boar building sells for $6M in cash, 4 times its 2011 purchase price

The Minneapolis building of the popular Butcher & the Boar restaurant sold this month for $6 million, considerably more than it went for five years ago.

The building at 1121 Hennepin Av. S. and its adjoining parking lot in downtown was bought for cash by an entity associated with Store Capital Corp., an Arizona-based real estate investment trust, for four times what restaurant owners Tim Rooney and Doug Van Winkle paid for the one-story building in 2011, according to an electronic certificate of real estate value and Hennepin County property records.

Hennepin Avenue Realty LLC, for which Rooney and Van Winkle are listed as the registered agent and manager respectively, was listed as the seller. Shea Design helped Rooney and Van Winkle revitalize the space. It appears that Rooney and Van Winkle will be able to lease the building for 15 years.

Butcher & the Boar opened in the space in 2012. It has consistently been ranked among the Twin Cities' top restaurants. Foodies don't need to fret. Butcher & the Boar has no plans to move, a representative for the restaurant said.

St. Paul's '1st' sign to light up again

The "1st" sign that lights up the St. Paul skyline is coming back. As part of a $12.5 million energy-savings upgrade to three downtown St. Paul buildings, the iconic sign atop First National Bank is in the process of being converted from neon lights to LEDs. The sign, which has been dark since the beginning of the year after being damaged in a storm, will be re-lit later this fall.

In addition to the upgrades to the sign, the rest of the occupied and shared spaces in the building have had their lighting upgraded to LEDs. The boilers and chillers, which are used for heating and cooling, were also replaced. Total renovation cost was about $6.5 million.

"We are always looking at ways to save dollars and reduce operating costs … What it boiled down to was a perfect storm," said Scott Goltz, vice president of St. Paul-based Madison Equities, which owns the building. Madison's project was helped by funding from the Property Assessed Clean Energy program of the St. Paul Port Authority and $1 million in energy rebates from Xcel Energy.

Similar upgrades were done at U.S. Bank Center and 375 Jackson buildings. In total, the changes are expected to save 13.5 million kilowatt-hours of power each year.