NorthMarq expands to San Diego

NorthMarq Capital, one of the nation's largest private commercial real estate mortgage companies, is bucking the industry's contraction trend and opening a new office in San Diego. NorthMarq Capital is a unit of Bloomington-based commercial real estate firm NorthMarq.

The San Diego office will focus on multifamily originations with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. It will work through an affiliate, AmeriSphere Multifamily Finance.

CEO Ed Padilla said it makes sense to expand the commercial real estate financing business even in the current turbulent market. Among other things, he said, cutbacks by some firms have put many good, experienced people on the market for his firm to hire.

"The current environment is providing us with opportunities to talk with people who have historically not been motivated to make a change," Padilla said. "This is the time when NorthMarq can offer the kind of stability unavailable from a company that has taken on too much debt or whose capabilities are restricted by the public market.

"While the marketplace has changed dramatically since the record years of 2005-2007," he added, "we were profitable in 2008 and expect to be profitable in 2009 as well."

Complex sold

Dominium Development and Acquisition has expanded its Minnesota holdings with the recent purchase of Lakewood Apartments in Lino Lakes from a local private partnership. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Plymouth-based Dominium now owns or manages 91 properties with more than 8,700 apartment units in Minnesota.

Deed grants

Five Minnesota communities have received infrastructure grants totaling $1.2 million from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

The funding was awarded under the agency's Greater Minnesota Business Development Public Infrastructure Grant Program. The program pays up to 50 percent of the capital costs for road construction, sewer and water extensions, and other infrastructure needs. Eligible communities must be outside the seven-county Twin Cities metro area.

The city of Virginia received $200,000 to develop an old mine dump site for P&H MinePro Services, a company that refurbishes mining equipment and cannot expand at its current sites in Mountain Iron, Buhl and Hibbing.

Detroit Lakes was awarded $250,000, for a 39-acre expansion of an existing industrial park. The project is expected to cost $1 million.

The city of Perham received $250,000, for infrastructure at the site of the new Perham Memorial Hospital. The total cost of the street/utilities project is $3.1 million.

Isle received $250,000 to extend utilities to a new 75-acre industrial park. The new park will help retain Merit Enterprises, whose building was destroyed by a fire in November 2008. The total cost for developing the industrial park is $2 million.