Top Transactions: Couple pays $2.75 million for rare unfinished Whitney condo.

Byline: Anne Bretts

Editor's note:The Top Transactions feature focuses on the latest top home sales in the Twin Cities area, as well as noteworthy new listings, new residential developments and housing trends.Finance & Commerce checks certificates of real estate value filed with the Minnesota Department of Revenue as well as data from the Northstar Multiple Listing Service, Realtor.com, county records and other sources.

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If all goes as planned, new owners will close Nov. 5 on the $2.75 million purchase of two adjoining condominium shells in the Whitney Landmark Residences at 150 S. Portland Ave. in Minneapolis.

The pending transaction, with a price that translates to $665.38 per square foot, is the most expensive condo sale in Minneapolis so far this year, according to certificates of real estate value registered with the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

The unit's value could double when the raw space is finished as a single 4,133-square-foot luxury residence. A brief online video tour shows the space has room for four bedrooms and three baths and large living areas, all with huge windows framing panoramic views of the city. The 17.5-foot ceilings even have room to create second-floor loft space. The price also includes four indoor parking spaces, a coveted amenity in the city.

The most unusual thing about the sale may be that it will mean the completion of the last unfinished condo in the 140-year-old building. Once a boutique hotel, it was converted 12 years ago into 32 units on eight floors. And while there are condos under construction throughout the city, the Whitneys' large condo could be the last unfinished unit among the crop of buildings completed or converted years ago.

"This is the last one that I know about," said Cynthia Froid, broker of the Cynthia Froid Group of Keller Williams Realty, who represented the sellers.

Froid's clients, who lived in the northern suburbs, bought Unit 701 in 2008.

A year later, with the first unit untouched, they bought a smaller unit next door, putting their total investment at $1.825 million.

"They bought them with the intention of knocking down a wall and making one big unit," she said. Life often gets in the way of plans, however. A decade later, they hadn't...