Condos Go Commercial

Carlson Real Estate Company's Town Center Office Plaza was featured in the June 27, 2004, Star Tribune's feature article in the Sunday Business Section: "Condos go commercial" by Terry Fiedler.

From the article...

"One of the big names in the market is Carlson Real Estate, which has a 50,000-square-foot office-condo project in Plymouth that it expects to complete by late this year. Carlson also is considering another office condo as part of a 50-acre mixed-use development in Oakdale.

Matt Van Slooten, president of Carlson Real Estate, said the company normally builds and holds its office buildings, but office condos represented a good opportunity in an otherwise tough market.

Prices in the Plymouth project, Town Center Office Plaza, start at $280,000 for a 1,560 square-foot condo. The project is aimed mostly at small business that otherwise couldn't afford to have their own building.

'Demand has been really strong here for about the last two years,' Van Slooten said. 'We feel that small business is the part of the economy that is coming back a little more quickly. A lot of them are business that follow residential growth: CPAs, lawyers, insurance agents, chiropractors, dentists. They don't seem to be as affected by the overall economy."