Why Seven Steakhouse is back on auction block a year after sale
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Photo courtesy of Newmark
The investors who bought the former Seven Steakhouse & Sushi building in downtown Minneapolis a year ago are once again putting the property up for auction.
Why it matters: On paper it looks like a bad deal. They paid $4.4 million for the building, surprising some real estate professionals by how much they outbid competitors. A Nov. 17-19 auction has a starting bid of $450,000.
Reality check: The buyers are two executives for Blue Ox Media, a local billboard company. CEO Tom McCarver tells Axios that the aggressive real estate buy was a play to control the property's three rooftop digital billboards, and they've locked them into a permanent easement.
- Minneapolis, despite some efforts to ease rules, still restricts billboards in most of downtown except for small districts near Target Center and U.S. Bank Stadium. So it's easy to see why Blue Ox coveted the building.
What we're watching: How much a buyer pays for what was once a highly popular — and massive — destination restaurant that closed in 2022.
- The three-level, 31,200-square-foot building at 700 Hennepin Ave. has one of the biggest rooftop patios downtown.
Zoom in: McCarver said he expects the building to sell for more than the $450,000 opening bid — that's just how auctioneer Ten-X handles the process. When Blue Ox bought the property, bidding started around the same amount.
- Newmark brokers Tim Prinsen and Bob Pounds are representing the sellers.
- "They had a number of bidders the last time. So there's a lot of interest in that corner," McCarver said.