How Bigos got a $5.1 million St. Paul deal.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

Bigos Management likely got a deal this week when it purchased the last piece of a real estate puzzle the company started building almost two decades ago.

The Golden Valley-based company paid $5.1 million for the seven-story Cray Plaza office and retail building at 174 Sixth St. E. in St. Paul, according to a certificate of real estate value made public on Wednesday. Bigos bought the 219,313-square-foot building out of receivership and at a point in time when occupancy stood at about 21 percent, according to the Minneapolis office of CBRE.

Cray Plaza, which was once known as Galtier Plaza, is part of a larger development project built in the mid-1980s that included the two Galtier Towers apartment buildings that stand astride the low-rise building. Bigos purchased the 366-unit complex in 2003. The taller of the two towers is 33 stories high.

The building's receiver, Trident Pacific Real Estate Group, put the property on the market at a price that reflected the occupancy rate and "known capital issues" that need to be addressed through maintenance, said Bentley Smith, a CBRE associate who was part of the team representing the seller.

The transaction, which closed on Dec. 13, works out to $23.25 per square foot of space. Ramsey County values the property at $9.395 million.

Bigos plans to convert the office building into multifamily residential units, Smith said in a Thursday interview. Construction will likely begin in 2021, according to a Bigos press release. The apartments will take up most of the space in Cray Plaza.

A number of investors competed to buy Cray Plaza, despite the issues with occupancy and maintenance, Smith said.

"There was a significant amount of interest because a buyer could acquire property significantly below the replacement...