From the President
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal informed the Saint Paul Port Authority in March that our Beacon Bluff Business Center was a finalist for their annual “Best in Real Estate” awards. The Business Journal’s selection process is pretty rigorous applications must be submitted, applicants are interviewed, and a panel of regional real estate experts serves as judges.
We were honored to have been selected as a finalist, but didn’t have any expectations. We planned to attend the annual awards event on April 14 – both to see how the awards selection turned out and to network with the region’s top real estate professionals.
Even after many years in the development business, I still was greatly thrilled when Beacon Bluff was announced the winner in the Industrial and Warehouse Development or Redevelopment category. Bill Morin, Monte Hilleman, Tom Collins and I accepted the award on behalf of the entire staff and Port Board. And of course, the project itself gave the Business Journal good reason to select it.
Anyone driving by the site today would see a flurry of activity. On the west end, the 46,000 square foot HealthEast Medical Transportation building just off Arcade Street and Reaney Avenue is progressing nicely. In the middle of the site at Forest and Phalen, Rachel Construction is demolishing the old 3M Building 99 complex to make way for a new roadway that will be built this year, and two clean building pads ready to host new businesses. On the east end along Phalen Boulevard, PCL Construction is grading the site of a 144,000 square foot Baldinger Bakery development. That’s three major construction activities within a stone’s throw of each other, on the east side of Saint Paul, in a down economy.
And the best part is we’re just getting started.
We’ve got shovel-ready building sites within the Beacon Bluff footprint, and we also have existing buildings for those who may be interested in buying and occupying a piece of history. Our commercial real estate broker, Cassidy-Turley, continues to aggressively market Beacon Bluff and we’ve had conversations with several prospective buyers. Prospects come and go, of course, but we’re excited about the level of interest that we’ve seen in Beacon Bluff.
We are grateful for the Best in Real Estate award. It’s both wonderful recognition and validation of our efforts to date, but there’s still much to accomplish. The Port’s mission is to create quality job opportunities, expand the City’s tax base and advance sustainable development. We accomplish that mission one site at a time. We’ve still got a lot of great buildings and building sites and our job is to fill them with a lot of great businesses. That’s why we’re here.
