Syndicated pays $39 million for Baker Road offices.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

A Chicago investor has spent almost $40 million to buy two buildings in Minnetonka that were once headquarters to two well-known local companies.

Syndicated Equities paid $39.8 million for a 90,000-square-foot office building at 4400 Baker Road and a 100,000-square-foot building next door at 4350 Baker Road, according to a certificate of real estate value made public on Tuesday. The properties, which were built decades apart in 1975 and 2008, respectively, are in the southeast quadrant of Interstate 494 and Highway 7.

The deal is Syndicated's second major office purchase in the Twin Cities in the past year. The company paid $22.77 million in August for a 97,257-square-foot office building at 6820 Wedgwood Road N. in Maple Grove.

The seller in the Minnetonka transaction is Toronto, Canada-based WPT Industrial REIT. The REIT, which was spun off from formerly Minnetonka-based Welsh Cos., still owns 16 other Minnesota properties, according to its website. Colliers International purchased Welsh's brokerage, property management, facilities and architecture divisions in 2017.

Welsh built the 4350 Baker Road building as its headquarters. The 4400 Baker Road Building was at one time the headquarters of the Petters Group. Former Petters Group CEO Tom Petters was convicted in 2009 in a $3.5 billion fraud case involving a Ponzi scheme in which investor money went to pay other investors and into purchases including those of Fingerhut, Polaroid and Sun Country Airlines, according to Finance & Commerce archives.

The sales deal with Syndicated, which closed on Jan. 27, works out to $209.47 per square foot of space. The property, which includes 18 total acres, last sold in 2006 for $8.9 million to a Welsh-connected entity, according to Hennepin County property records. The county values the property at $20.1 million for tax purposes.

Neither the buyer nor the seller responded immediately Wednesday to requests for comment on the...