Doran & CSM Partner to Develop General Mills RTC Property

(Minneapolis, MN) Twin City real estate developers Kelly Doran and Gary Holmes have joined forces to purchase the General Mills Riverside Technical Center property located at 330 University Avenue, a prime location within the rapidly-growing Northeast retail sector of Minneapolis, and just one block off of Main Street, the Stone Arch Bridge and the St. Anthony Falls Historic District.

The 8.71 acre site between Second Street and University Avenue is bisected by Third Avenue with surface parking to the west and the General Mills Riverside Technical Center building to the east. Both Doran and Holmes’ companies have developments in the area. Doran Companies previously developed six student housing properties in the Marcy-Holmes Dinkytown area and the 338-unit luxury apartment property, Mill & Main, a block away on Main Street. Holmes’ company, CSM Corporation, owns the recently updated and expanded Renaissance Minneapolis Hotel – The Depot and Residence Inn by Marriott located just across the river in the Historic Mill District.

The $15.8 million sale was completed today. “We are excited to work with someone as iconic as Gary Holmes and his CSM team,” said Doran. “We’ll begin developing concepts for a multi-family housing project in the surface parking area to start the approval process this year and hope to break ground sometime next year.” Doran said the partnership negotiated a lease with General Mills allowing them to continue using the space in the Riverside Technical Center building.

The entrepreneurial Holmes has a long history of acquiring, developing and renovating commercial, hotel and residential properties across the United States. “We have been active all across the country but it always feels good to do business in Minneapolis,” Holmes said. “We are very pleased to partner with a company like Doran which has a great tradition of developing and building high-quality projects in this market,” he added. Today, CSM owns and manages a portfolio including more than 10 million square feet of commercial space, 6,600 hotel rooms and 2,600 multi-family units.

Doran, whose construction and architecture companies will design and build this project, is currently developing 800 multi-family units in Brooklyn Park, Hopkins and Maple Grove.