Just Sold: Kasbohm pays $5.95M for Park West Apartments.

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.

Don Kasbohm, owner of St. Louis Park-based Main Street Cos., has acquired the 60-unit Park West Apartments in St. Louis Park for $5.95 million.

The property includes two three-story buildings, built in 1967 on 2.9 acres at 1425 Colorado Ave. S.

Colorado Avenue Apartments LLC, a Main Street entity, closed Oct. 12 on the acquisition from 415 LLC, an entity related to two private investors who had shared ownership for a decade but were ready dissolve their partnership. One partner was represented by Peter Michel of Michel Commercial Real Estate International in Minneapolis. The other was represented by Mox Gunderson, senior vice president with JLL's Minneapolis office.

Public records indicate the sellers had paid $4.38 million in 2008 and still carried debt on the property. Michel confirmed that the sale price satisfied the mortgage holder and allowed the partners to move on. He declined to identify the partners.

The price works out to $99,167 per unit. The average sales price per unit for apartments in the Twin Cities metro area is $130,983, according to the Finance & Commerce Apartment Sales Tracker at finance-commerce.com. The tracker has recorded the sale of 45,518 apartment units since Aug. 31, 2011.

Kasbohm said he operates in the area, so he was familiar with the building. When Gunderson suggested Kasbohm take a look at it, he did.

"I do a lot of work repositioning properties," he said. He liked that there was the opportunity to add value by investing about $200,000 in maintenance and upgrades and in updating rents. The building has a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, ranging in size from 750 to 850 square feet, with current rents ranging from $800 to $1,100 per month.

Kasbohm's portfolio hovers around 1,000 units, but has fluctuated over the past year as he has bought and sold several properties. For example, in December he paid $18.6 million for the 216-unit Grand Pre apartments at 200 Winthrop St...