Business & Tech

Purchase Agreement Extended on State Farm Building in Woodbury

Meanwhile, city administrator says special legislation unlikely this session.

The company looking to buy and redevelop the former State Farm building in Woodbury recently had the purchase agreement extended to September.

Steve Wellington, president of Wellington Management, Inc., confirmed the extended time line in an email to Woodbury Patch.

Wellington Management’s plans for the 420,000-square-foot building include converting the facility for multi-tenant use, building a new Costco on the property and eventually constructing a senior-housing complex and hotel at the 100-acre site. Wellington has said the company has $68 million in investments lined up for the property and its redevelopment would create 1,800 new jobs.

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Meanwhile, it doesn’t look as though the city will be able to get any special legislation pushed through at the Capitol this year. Woodbury City Council members had expressed interest in seeking some form of help from lawmakers, though it wasn't clear what form that would take.

“The timetable for all bills to be heard is simply too early in the year for us,” said City Administrator Clint Gridley. “So we don’t have a proposal, and we didn’t know if that was going to work between the parties.”

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The city is working with the Minneapolis-based law firm of Faegre and Benson to get the State Farm building redeveloped. The firm is serving in an advisory role, Gridley said, helping the city find new ways to get the building humming again.

The building, along Radio Drive near Interstate 94, has been vacant since 2004, when State Farm moved several of those jobs to Lincoln, Neb.

Wellington Management has expressed interest in getting the area rezoned for its plans, but so far there has been no development plan submitted to the city, Gridley said. And zoning changes aren’t easy. They require a four-fifths vote by the city council, approval from the Metropolitan Council and input from neighboring cities, he said.

“It would be a very significant departure from what we’ve done there,” Gridley said.

He stressed that it will take time before anything concrete happens with the State Farm building.

“With these kinds of properties, there’s usually an extended period of conversation going on, and that’s typical of these types of developments,” Gridley said.


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