A 10-story office tower at 435 Ford Road in St. Louis Park, known as the Metropoint “435” building, just changed hands at a price that amounts to a massive haircut from its last sale. The deal is already stoking redevelopment chatter around the Metropoint campus and putting yet another spotlight on just how bruised the Twin Cities office market has become.
The Deal and the Numbers
According to the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal, the latest sale of the 435 building worked out to roughly a 92 percent discount from its last arms-length price. The tower had previously been part of a three-building portfolio, and the most recent arms-length valuation attributed about $36.5 million to the 435 component, as reported by Finance & Commerce.
Foreclosure, Auction and the Previous Owner
Before this latest sale, the building took a detour through distress. Industry reports say the tower was marketed through an online auction late last year after a default, and a lender briefly ended up holding the keys. CRE MarketBeat notes that the lender acquired the property in a foreclosure auction for roughly $5.86 million earlier in the process.
Marketing materials described the 435 building as a roughly 200,000-square-foot, 10-story office asset with a small in-place tenant roster and a lot of “repositioning” potential, from straightforward lease-up to more ambitious redevelopment, according to LoopNet.
What the Discount Signals for Twin Cities Offices
A sale at this kind of discount lines up with a broader reset hitting suburban and secondary office buildings across the Twin Cities. Vacancy has been running in the mid-20-percent range, and several recent trades have closed at steep price cuts, according to market summaries from Finance & Commerce.
In that environment, more buyers are underwriting deals based on land and conversion value instead of traditional long-term office cash flow. The Metropoint 435 sale fits squarely into that trend: a big building, a shaky leasing picture and investors eyeing what else the site could become.
Redevelopment Prospects and Current Tenants
Brokers marketing the Metropoint site have leaned hard on its location and bones. The property sits next to Interstates 394 and Highway 169, with large floor plates and attached parking that make it a candidate for mixed-use or housing conversion, and offering materials flag it as a transit-oriented redevelopment opportunity, per LoopNet…