In turns out that Mayo Clinicbought all three buildings in Rochester's 41st Street Professional Campus, known locally as the IBM White Buildings,earlier this month.
I reported in Tuesday's column that Mayo Clinic purchased the 4111 West Frontage Road building, which houses its Mayo Family Clinic Northwest.
The $10 million Mayo Clinic paid to New York Life Insurance Co.on Sept. 1 actually paid for all three sprawling, connected buildings. In total, the complex is 435,000 square feet in size.
Olmsted County estimated the market value of the three connected buildings at $13.8 million for 2016, so it looks like Mayo got a pretty good deal.
"With existing leases set to expire at this site at year end 2017, Mayo Clinic was presented with the opportunity to purchase the three-building campus. This purchase will secure our existing occupied space long-term and allow us to avoid any patient-care disruption associated with any relocation and provide an opportunity to address growth and consolidation needs for various departments," said Mayo Clinic spokeswoman Kelley Lucksteinabout the purchase on Tuesday.
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The purchase opens open more space for the ever-growing Mayo Clinic, since the 3055 building is empty.
"The investment will allow for consolidation of certain administrative, clinical, educational and research functions that do not need to be in the proximity of downtown. This will then open up space downtown to expand various functions that are critical to the downtown area," added Luckstein, via email.
There are five non-Mayo tenants leasing space in the 3033 building. Luckstein says the change in ownership "will not have an impact on their current occupancies."
The 41st Street Professional Campus was built in phases by Mortenson Propertiesto lease to IBM in the 1980s. The buildings once housed hundreds of IBM employees overflowing from the adjacent Blue Zoocampus.
By 2004, a dramatically reduced IBM had pulled all employees from the buildings.
The move eventually proved too much for the Minnesota-based Mortenson. The company, which recently was chosen by Mayo Clinic to develop its Discovery Squareproject in the heart of downtown, handed the massive property over to its mortgage lender, New York Life, in 2010.
Biz buzz
At the end of 2014, Barnes & Nobleclosed its downtown Rochester book store. While that opened up the Historic Chateau Theaterfor the city as a new downtown centerpiece, it left downtown Med City without the friendly amenity of a book shop.
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The story on the street is that could soon change. An independent book store is working on a deal to set up shop in another historic downtown building.
If the plot works out as some have predicted, there could be a happy ending. -- Jeff Kiger
