Luther Seminary is a nationally recognized lutheran seminary that has occupied a beautiful wooded campus on the edge of Saint Paul’s St. Anthony Park neighborhood for 120 years. As seminary education has evolved, the seminary decided to consolidate its operations on part of the campus and offer the nearly 16 Acres of its lower campus for redevelopment.

As the seminary’s real estate consultant, Grand Real Estate Advisors led a process for the seminary to evaluate its campus needs and resources and determine the best use of its real estate portfolio. Following a recommendation to consolidate and sell the lower campus, Grand Real Estate Advisors prepared the offering documents, implemented a community relations strategy for working with the neighborhood, coordinated the bidding process for interested developers and recommended a course of action to the seminary’s board of directors. Since the developer was selected, Grand has continued to provide counsel on the project and has refocused on the redevelopment of the ongoing home of the seminary on the upper campus.

Services
Development Consulting including:

• Strategic real estate asset planning
• Real estate valuation
• Development of offering documents
• Community relations
• Evaluation of offers
• Campus planning

Brokerage

Project Management

Scope

• Consulting on the sale of 15.86 acres in a fully developed city
• Consulting on the redevelopment of xx acre campus for future seminary use

Project:

Park 24 is a luxury apartment building featuring 25 one and two bedroom apartment units and 3,000 square feet of retail. It is on a prominent site in St. Paul’s historic St. Anthony Park, a popular urban neighborhood with a highly engaged residential community and an unmet demand for apartment options.

Grand Real Estate Advisors Principal Judd Fenlon led the development from conception to completion. He shepherded the project through the cleanup of the polluted site, financing and a challenging zoning variance process. He assembled the design and construction team and managed the project through construction. Grand Real Estate Advisors served as the broker and both the commercial and residential portions of Park 24 were fully leased within a month of completion.

Services

Development consulting including:

• Partnership negotiation
• Entitlements
• Financing
• Assembling design and construction team

Project Management

Leasing

Scope

Development from concept to leasing

3,000 square feet of commericial

25 units of residential

Project

Riverbend Business Center is 225,000 square feet of commercial/industrial space in four buildings along the Mississippi River west of downtown Saint Paul. The center was built on reclaimed industrial land with challenging environmental and soil conditions. The development process included tax increment financing, soil correction, and civic partnerships.

Grand Real Estate Founder Tanya Bell led this development from conception to completion. She negotiated a partnership with the Saint Paul Port Authority and secured financing for the project. She served as the project manager through site acquisition, design, and construction. She then led the leasing effort as the phased project developed. The first three phases are completed and 100 percent leased.

Services

Development consulting including:

• Partnership negotiation
• Financing
• Project Management
• Leasing

 Scope

• A four-building industrial park on formerly polluted urban site
• 225,000 square feet

When Ecolab Corporation moved its headquarters to a building across town, it left a vacant 20 story former headquarters tower at the heart of downtown Saint Paul. A group of investors including Tanya Bell of Grand Real Estate Advisors purchased the building in the summer of 2017 with a vision to redevelop it into a home for growing innovation companies. The group invested $20 million to create public spaces, a community floor for tenants and to upgrade systems to serve the needs of technology driven companies. As part of the process, the building earned historic designation that qualified it for historic tax credit financing. Fifteen months after closing the deal, the improvements are complete, a carefully curated group of innovation companies occupies the building and it has become a regional center for the growing tech and innovation community.

 Services

Development consulting including:

• Visioning
• Pre-development
• Marketing
• Leasing

 Scope

• Adaptive reuse and renovation of a former corporate headquarters tower as commercial office and retail space.
• 200,000 square feet