The site of one of the first Best Buy stores is slated to become the latest luxury apartment building in Edina.
Best Buy founder Richard Schulze and his wife, Maureen, recently sold the property, located near Southdale Center, for $4.5 million to an entity associated with Midwest Apartment Brokers, which will tear down the former store and replace it with a 210-unit apartment building.
The project is one of several luxury apartment buildings proposed around Southdale, an area expected to add more than 1,100 new apartments in coming years.
KM2 Development, which purchased the property, plans to call the six-story complex Cake Residences, developer Kurt Krumenauer said.
Property records show that Schulze paid $385,000 for the 1.14-acre parcel in 1983. The deal included two adjacent parcels at the southeast corner of West 66th Street and York Avenue that total 1.77 acres.
In June, KM2 also bought a quarter-acre property with a single-family house that will eventually be demolished to make way for a buffer between the commercial development and the adjacent residential neighborhood. Demolition of the Best Buy store will start in September, Krumenauer said.
Developers have been eyeing the site since Best Buy Inc. closed the store in 2012. The store dated back to 1973, when Schulze was building Sound of Music stores in the Twin Cities area, the forerunner of what, in the 1980s, became Best Buy.
Through its master plan, Edina has been encouraging higher density development in and around Southdale Center. Last year, the 246-unit 71 France complex was built at 71st Street and France Avenue. And a 232-unit building called One Southdale Place opened last year in a portion of Southdale's parking lot.
More than 1,100 units are at various stages of approval or construction in the area, including a 39-unit apartment building targeted to homeless youths and a 100-unit assisted living and memory care building for seniors that's being developed by Mesaba Capital Partners, according to Mary Bujold of Maxfield Research.
DLC Residential of Aventura, Fla., is one of the most active developers in that area. The company is planning a total of 375 units, with 230 in the first phase that would replace two older office buildings on a 5.7-acre site between Hwy. 62 and Southdale Center. That project is still in the approval process. Lennar Multifamily is building 273 units on York Avenue next to Southdale on the former site of a Wickes furniture store.
At the end of March, the average apartment vacancy rate in Edina was 8.8 percent, more than double the rate a year earlier. The average rent was $1,352, up 5.6 percent from a year earlier, according to Marquette Advisors.
Jim Buchta • 612-673-7376
