Artis snaps up Twin Cities properties

A Canadian real estate investment trust has scooped up part of a large portfolio of Twin Cities industrial properties it's planning to buy.

Winnipeg-based Artis Real Estate Investment Trust on Friday bought four suburban Twin Cities warehouses for $23.8 million, according to sales documents filed Tuesday at the Hennepin County Government Center. The warehouses are in Rogers, Eden Prairie, New Hope and Brooklyn Park.

Artis REIT also closed Friday on the purchase of two more buildings in Savage and Fridley, according to Doug McGregor, senior vice president-asset management for the trust. McGregor said he didn't know exactly what Artis paid for the other two properties.

The six properties are part of a collection of 25 industrial buildings that AMB Property Corp., a large real estate investment trust (REIT) based in San Francisco, put on the market earlier this year. CB Richard Ellis has been marketing the package as the largest single industrial portfolio that has ever changed hands in the Twin Cities. It will continue to manage and lease the buildings.

"This is a big deal," said Tim Prinsen, senior vice president at Minnetonka-based Welsh Cos. "There was a significant amount of interest in the portfolio and in pieces of the portfolio."

AMB and CB Richard Ellis declined comment.

McGregor confirmed that Artis REIT is buying all of AMB's package of 25 buildings, which total about 2.3 million square feet. The purchase will make Artis REIT one of the largest industrial landlords in the Twin Cities.

A local broker familiar with the transaction said the entire sale price was about $115 million, or about $50 a square foot.

Artis already owns two other properties in the Twin Cities: the Caterpillar Building in Maple Grove, which it bought in late October, and the DSI Building in New Brighton which it bought earlier this year for about $17.9 million.

The deal has attracted attention for its size, and for the fact that the properties are being sold in a depressed real estate market with high industrial vacancy rates.

Mark Kolsrud, senior vice president and principal at Cassidy Turley, said the deal underscores how rich some REITs are. He said the buildings are good investments and the sale price is reasonable. But rents are falling, Kolsrud said, leaving Artis with a challenge going forward as leases come up for renewal.

McGregor, with Artis, said the REIT did its due diligence and has been negotiating leases and that there have been no surprises with rents. "We're pretty comfortable with what we're seeing," he said.

"I can assure we have an appetite for other product in that market."