Mosaic Co. bulks up on Minnesota warehouses.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

Plymouth-based fertilizer maker Mosaic Co. has paid $43.3 million to buy a set of Rosemount warehouses from competitor CF Industries.

Mosaic paid cash for three warehouse buildings and about 237 acres of land, according to a certificate of real estate value recently made public and Dakota County property records. The warehouses at 5300 Pine Bend Trail are next to CF's Pine Bend Terminal, which is just east of Highway 52 and adjacent to the Mississippi River. The warehouse property is also near the Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend oil refinery.

The warehouses Mosaic purchased total 621,098 square feet of space. The buildings date to 1966 and 1980, county records show. The facility can store 200,000 tons of dry material, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

The deal, which closed on April 1, works out to $69.71 per square foot of warehouse space. The county values the property at $4.59 million for tax purposes.

CF will continue to use the warehouses for its products under an agreement signed with Mosaic, said CF spokesman Christopher Close. The sale is part of an ongoing business strategy for CF.

"It's just part of our ongoing focus to optimize our manufacturing and distribution network," Close said in a Tuesday interview.

CF will continue to operate its Pine Bend Terminal, which ships ammonia and urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer via a rail connection, on river barges and by truck, Close said. The terminal supplies more than 60,000 tons of fertilizer annually to customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to the company's website. CF has one other fertilizer terminal in Minnesota, in Glenwood.

Mosaic did not...