Sears site near Capitol sells again
The long-term future of the former Sears property near the State Capitol in St. Paul continues to be shrouded in mystery now that the site has sold for the second time in less than a month.
Pacifica St Paul LLC, an entity related to developer Eddie Ni, CEO of Windfall Group, sold the property at 425 Rice St. to Asian Media Access Inc. of Minneapolis, according to a certificate of real estate value made public Friday.
The property traded for $8.2 million, which is $1.2 million more than it fetched in May.
As of Monday, the new owners aren’t disclosing their plans for the site. Finance & Commerce reached out to the buyer for comment.
In mid-May, Pacifica St Paul bought the high-profile redevelopment site for $7 million. Marshall Nguyen, vice president of Edina-based Caspian Group, represented the buyer and was also a partner on the real estate.
“Asian Media Access was one of our original partners on this and they expressed a last-minute interest in acquiring the entire site,” Nguyen said in an email. “Initially, we harbored some reservations about this proposal. However, we eventually made the decision to have them take over the project.”
Nguyen added that he and his business partner, Eddie Ni, are proud of being “the main vessel for future development on the Sears site.”
Surrounded by asphalt parking in the shadow of the Capitol, the former Sears store has long been a target for redevelopment. The store has been vacant since 2019.
The property is within the 60-block Capitol area, where the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) has planning, design and zoning jurisdiction, Merritt Clapp-Smith Executive Secretary of the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board, said in a recent email.
Clapp-Smith said in May that formal redevelopment plans for the site have not been submitted to the CAAPB.
“The CAAPB looks forward to working with a site developer, the city of St. Paul, and the community to advance a great, mixed-use development on the former Sears site,” she added.
“The CAAPB’s long-range redevelopment policy for the site, prepared in close collaboration with the community and the city of St. Paul, is to restore a walkable small block pattern on the site, with a mix of uses, price points, and public space.”
Brian McMahon, a Twin Cities resident with strong ties to the University Avenue corridor, says he doesn’t know what the future holds for the site, though he has some suggestions.
“I wish that the state would buy it and do a mixed-use development, using the money they could save from not demolishing the Ford Building [a 110-year-old structure near the Capitol complex],” said McMahon, who previously led University United, a now-inactive advocacy group for University Avenue businesses. “I think the old Sears building could be reused, by opening up the interior and turning that into an open-air atrium.”
McMahon has long advocated for the preservation of the Ford Building, which is mere blocks from the Sears property.
The Sears property is in an Opportunity Zone and is a “Qualified Census Tract,” which makes it eligible for various redevelopment funds.
