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The Blueprint
Scannell Properties bought the 119,000-square-foot warehouse for $9.8 million.
A 63,768-square-foot addition is planned, bringing the site to 191,120 square feet.
The property sits near Highway 169 and I-94 in a strong Northwest submarket.
A 119,000-square-foot warehouse in Brooklyn Park has traded hands and the buyer says a 63,000 square foot expansion is planned.
Scannell Properties bought the distribution warehouse from Essendant Co., an Illinois-based firm, for $9.8 million, according to a recently released certificate of real estate value.
Scannell’s acquisition of the property comes only a couple months after the development company unloaded a series of warehouses in the same city for $63.5 million, as previously reported by Finance & Commerce.
The building, which includes an 8,284-square-foot office, is located at 7509 Boone Ave. N. in Brooklyn Park, not far from key transit corridors Highway 169 and Interstate 94.
Built in 1986, the site is estimated to be worth around $8.8 million, an increase upon last year’s $8.4 million, according to Hennepin County public records.
A listing from JLL shows that Scannell plans to build a 63,768-square-foot addition on the property’s westside. The listing says that the property currently is available to rent and that the building addition will be “available” in June 2026. This would bring the site’s footprint to 191,120 square feet.
Michael Conzemius, a development manager for Scannell, said in an interview on Monday that the firm likes the location and wants to build on its work in Brooklyn Park. He said Scannell buying existing properties to build an addition is not a “strategy we employ often.”
“Just given where the market is right now, the opportunity of this particular building, we jumped at the opportunity,” Conzemius said.
Conzemius said the arrival of winter has led to questions about how soon Scannell can begin work on the site, but said the plan is to go vertical as early as possible in the spring. The delivery of the site, he said, is weather-dependent, but called Fall 2026 a “safe bet” for wrapping up.
Essendant is an office-product distributor, according to the company’s website, that has over 2 million square feet of space in distribution centers across their portfolio. Essendant declined to comment when reached for this story.
With Essendant leaving, Conzemius said Scannell is looking for a new tenant for the single-user property.
With its $9.8 million price tag, the price-per-square-foot ends up being around $77.04.
In addition to its proximity to key transit corridors, the property is also down the road from the Arbor Lakes Business Park, one of the strongest micro-markets in the Twin Cities metro. The Northwest submarket more broadly continues to be a dominant force for development in the metro. According to CBRE’s recent report on the Twin Cities industrial market, the Northwest accounted for over half of all deliveries in the market last quarter and looking forward, it has another half-a-million square feet under construction. Its vacancy rate is 3% compared with the market average of 3.8%.
Last quarter, Scannell sold three warehouses in NorthPark Business Center for $63.5 million, or $148 per square foot to BuzzOats. These properties were brand-new construction developed by Scannell and 100% occupied.