CSM buys Hwy. 610 corridor land, plans spec building

Sees room for up to 200,000 s.f. in booming Brooklyn Park

Minnesota Real Estate Journal, September 28, 2007

Don Jacobson Editor

CSM Corp. has gained control of a 19-acre site in Brooklyn Park near the Highway 610/169 interchange and is moving ahead with plans to begin construction on a speculative 53,300 square foot building there that would be ready for occupancy next year, with room for nearly 150,000 additional square feet of office development.

The parcel is located southeast of the interchange along 93rd Avenue North, a site that CSM says is “ideal for the development of office and showroom space with roads and utilities to be completed in 2008.” The firm adds it has “a measure of flexibility with the site that can accommodate up to 200,000 square feet of single-story office or showroom space.”

The sellers were the Seed family, a group with long real estate ties to Brooklyn Park, who are moving ahead just a bit further to the east with their own plans for Astra Village, a 150-acre, mixed-use project that envisions up to 2 million square feet of mid-rise office, hotel or corporate campus, as well as housing and retail elements.

Both are just down the Highway 610 corridor from Target Corp.’s planned $2 billion mixed-use corporate campus. Also nearby, Ryan Companies has applied to the city for permission to construct the second phase of its 610 Business Park, the first part of which was completed last year with more than 78,000 square feet of office space.

"Brooklyn Park is experiencing consistent growth," says Michele Foster, CSM’s vice president of commercial development. "Several companies have locked in on prime locations that have resulted in the increase of industrial and commercial development."

Some of the companies neighboring the CSM site include PDL BioPharma and Liberty Diversified Industries.

“What CSM is proposing does fit in with that area,” says Amy Baldwin, a business development specialist for the city of Brooklyn Park. “The land use there is designated a s business park and CSM has been holding discussions with our planning staff. There’s continued interest and demand for land along the Highway 610 corridor.”