Just Sold: HOM buys site for Bloomington expansion.

Byline: Anne Bretts

Editor's note: "Just Sold" is a Finance & Commerce feature based on certificates of real estate value recently filed for commercial transactions and significant residential transactions in Twin Cities counties. Additional details in the transactions come from Plat Research, the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office, company documents, online real estate listings, F&C archives, CoStar and other research. Some purchase prices and per-unit calculations have been rounded. Full prices are available on the CRVs posted here.

Executives at Coon Rapids-based HOM Furniture know they want to create a new 215,000-square-foot flagship store in Bloomington, featuring the retailer's HOM, Dock 86, and Gabberts Design Studio & Fine Furniture concepts.

The question now is whether to expand the existing 106,111-square-foot building at 7800-7850 Dupont Ave. S. or close the store for a year to replace it with a new retail center on the site.

To accommodate either scenario, HOM has paid $1.7 million for a 5,000-square-foot truck rental building and 0.43-acre site to the west, at 1217 Clover Drive in Bloomington. New Jersey-based Budget Truck Rental LLC is the seller.

The deal closed Nov. 9 at a price that works out to about $3.96 million per acre. Plans call for demolishing that 5,000-square-foot building and combining the site with two parcels HOM already owns to create a single 5.48-acre parcel. The city has rezoned the rental site from industrial to freeway commercial center use.

"It will be our biggest showroom," said John Pierce, real estate manager for HOM. The retailer operates 16 stores in five states, including a new 100,000-square-foot store opening this month in Brooklyn Center.

Pierce wouldn't say Wednesday when they'll announce a decision on which plan to use or when to start construction, although plans submitted to the city show the work will start in 2019.

Pierce declined to share cost figures for either scenario in Bloomington, or estimate how much revenue could be lost if the store closed during construction.

The combined site is between American Boulevard and the south side of Interstate 494, just east of Interstate 35W. That location is the driving force behind the project.

"There are 200,000 vehicles a day on 494," Pierce said. "It's the highest traffic count between Denver and Chicago."

Building a new store would mean a shift in the company's growth strategy, Pierce said. "We typically buy old Kohl's or Lowe's or...