The researchers at Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services predict that builders will deliver 1,865 rental units in 2012. That’s the highest this figure has stood in eight years. It also dwarves multi-family activity in 2011, when builders delivered 477 multi-family markets to the Minneapolis/St. Paul market.

The news is not all good, though. Marcus & Millichap is predicting that vacancies in the Twin Cities multi-family sector will rise 20 basis points in 2012 to 2.8 percent. The reason for this is fairly obvious: The number of new units delivered by builders will exceed a smaller increasein demand among Twin Cities consumers.

Don’t expect the rising vacancies, though, to hurt rents. According to Marcus & Millichap, operators should be able to raise asking rents 2.9 percent by the end of 2012 to $987 a month. Effective rents will see an even bigger increase, a predicted 4.5 percent to $956 a month.

This is all good news for the Twin Cities. Overall, Marcus & Millichap ranks Minneapolis/St. Paul as the 10th-best multi-family market in the country. That’s down a bit from 2011, when Marcus ranked the Twin Cites as the eighth-best such market, but it’s still a solid ranking. And it provides yet more evidence that the multi-family market here, and in most Midwest markets, remains the best commercial real estate bet out there.

Pine Tree Park Apartments is a 199-unit, seven-building apartment complex in St. Paul.  The property is owned by 806 Hazel Street, LLC. The proceeds were used to pay off the underlying CMBS first mortgage loan.

“Refinancing our property now and paying off the underlying CMBS loan early allowed us to take advantage of historically low interest rates,” said Tom Hurley, a principal with 806 Hazel Street, LLC.

241-247 Snelling Avenue South is a mixed-use commercial building with ground floor commercial space, including the landmark St. Clair Broiler Restaurant, and residential apartments on the second floor. The loan proceeds were used to purchase the building.

“This was an opportunity to buy a neighborhood landmark. Towle helped us find the right lender for the building to make the deal work for my client,” said Mike Finkelstein of The Ackerberg Group.

The loans were provided by a commercial bank. Peter Austin, a commercial loan officer with Towle, originated the loans.

The company sold a 3,000-square-foot office building in Rosemount, Minn., now owned and occupied by Jason Laube of State Farm Insurance. Chief also sold a 10,000-square-foot office building in South Saint Paul, Minn., tha is now owned and occupied by Sohniks Endoscopy.

In other business, Chief Real Estate sold the 8,300-square-foot former Black Bear Lodge & Saloon in Rogers, Minn., to a private investor. Chief also completed the sale of the former Wyatt Earp’s Bar & Grill, a 10,000-square-foot restaurant building in Ramsey, Minn., to a pirvate investor.

In a final recent commercial sale, Chief sold an 18,500-square-foot bank building in Savage, Minn., to a private investor. That investor has leased the building to Associated Bank.

The 10-year fixed-rate loan (two years interest-only with a 30-year amortization thereafter) was provided to Cohen & Associates, LLC to acquire an existing bond-financed affordable housing property.

“We worked to provide options and flexibility as the terms of the acquisition changed,” said C.W. Early, vice president of affordable housing at Oak Grove Capital. “The purchase price and proposed rehab were moving targets, so we adjusted on the fly to meet the original closing deadline.”

“Oak Grove did a fantastic job from start to finish in providing us with a FNMA loan on our recent acquisition in Florida,” said Per Gidi Cohen, president of Cohen & Associates, LLC. “They were able to approve our loan within our due diligence period and their team coordinated a very complex closing that included the payoff of affordable housing bonds.”

But those folks living in St. Paul, Minn., should be pleased with the list: According to the magazine, St. Paul ranks as one of the happiest cities in the United States.

Yes, Men’s Health in late November released its list of the 100 saddest cities in the United States. And, unfortunately, the Midwest had several cities on the list, headed by Detroit, which ranked as the second-saddest city in the country according to Men’s Health. Thank goodness for St. Petersburg, Fla., which ranked as the saddest of the sad, the only city that Men’s Health found to be gloomier than Detroit.

Now, before you think the editors at Men’s Health are pulling city names out of a hat, you should know that they did some research before putting together their list. They calculated the suicide rates of cities across the United States and considered unemployment rates. They also analyzed the percentage of households that use antidepressants.

It’s not surprising, then, that Detroit ended up high on the list. There is simply too much unemployment here.

Other Midwest cities that ranked high on the sadness list include Memphis, which ranked as the third saddest city in the country, and Louisville, which came in at fifth. St. Louis ranked sixth in terms of sadness, though I’m not sure if the rankings were calculated before or after the Cardinals won the World Series. (Maybe St. Louis residents were watching the Rams try to play football as the sadness ratings were being conducted.)

On the positive side, Men’s Health ranked several Midwest cities among the top 10 happiest in the country. St. Paul, Minn.; Madison, Wis.; and Omaha all made this sunnier list. Credit a lower-than-average unemployment rate in these three cities for their high happiness rankings.

At the end of its sadness list, Men’s Health editors give their own prescriptions for fighting off the blues. I think, though, that the residents of Detroit, St. Louis and Memphis would be a lot happier if they had more jobs from which to choose. That’s a pretty simple prescription for happiness.

Jeff Eaton

The Minneapolis/St. Paul-area commercial real estate landscape is about to look a lot different. Two of the area’s largest commercial real estate firms — NorthMarq and Bloomington, Minn.-based Cushman & Wakefield Minnesota — have agreed on a merger.

The new firm will be called Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq Real Estate Services. The new joint venture is expecte dto close Sept. 30.

Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq Real Estate will be based out of one of the NorthMarq offices in the Twin Cities region, though it is not yet clear which one.

NorthMarq’s sister company, NorthMarq Capital — which provides loan services — is not part of the newly merged company. NorthMarq Capital will continue to operate as its own separate entity.

The new Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq Real Estate will feature a staff made up of employees from Cushman & Wakefield’s Minnesota office and NorthMarq Real Estate services. The newly created venture will boast more than 500 employees, making it one of the largest commercial real estate firms of its kind in the United States.

Clint Miller

The new company will also become the Twin Cities region’s largest property facility management firm, with more than 55 million square feet of properties under management in Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding areas.

Jeff Eaton, president of NorthMarq Real Estate Services, will head the new venture.

“The creation of this joint venture supports the long-term strategic plan we launched in 2008,” Eaton said in a written statement. “We’ve looked at a number of ways to grow our business, and determined that partnering with a global platform of Cushman & Wakefield’s stature was the ideal strategic fit.”

Cushman & Wakefield is no newcomer to Minnesota. The company has had a presence in the state since 2002, when it entered Minnesota under the leadership of Clint Miller. Miller will join the newly merged venture as a member of its senior leadership team.

“FOrging this joint venture with NorthMarq provides us with immediate scale and scope in Minnesota,” said Jim Underhill, Cushman & Wakefield’s chief executive officer for the Americas. “(It will) be a great fit for our firm from day one.”

The 10-year loan, which amortizes over 30 years, refinanced construction financing used by the borrower to renovate a closed nursing facility into a 85-unit assisted living community, including 25 units of memory care. The facility is managed by the Northbridge Companies, a Boston-based group that develops, owns and operates senior communities in New England.

“We’re gratified to complete a newer company’s first GSE loan,” said Bill Kauffman, managing director of Oak Grove Capital’s Seniors Housing and Healthcare Group. “Freddie Mac recognized the depth of Northbridge’s senior housing expertise that prompted the development of a state-of-the-art assisted living community.”

In its second quarter market report, Marcus & Millichap points to the recent move of US Bancorp, which moved 1,600 workers from St. Paul to the Meridian Crossing office complex in Richfield, Minn. The move, Marcus & Millichap wrote, highlights what appears to be a new trend in the Twin Cities: Both large companies and the general population are moving back into the core area of the Twin Cities.

This means good news for the retail market in the Twin Cities. According to Marcus & Millichap, vacancy rates in this sector should drop 30 basis points to 8.9 percent throughout 2011. The vacancy rate in this sector fell 30 basis points last year, too.

Rents should increase slightly in the retail sector in 2011, too. According to the report, Twin Cities retail operators will raise asking rents 0.2 percent to $17.20 a square foot. Effective rents will rise, too, 0.8 percent to $14.77 a square foot. Concessions are expected to slip to 14.1 percent of asking rents.

According to the most recent research brief from Marcus & Millichap, this good news can be traced to the strong employment numbers in the Twin Cities. The real estate firm says that nearly all major employment sectors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region will add positions in 2011.

This is particularly good news considering that this metro area already boasts an unemployment rate under 7 percent, one of the lowest in the country.

Overall multi-family vacancy rates will fall below 3 percent this year in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. This figure represents a 10-year low in the region.

Asking rents in this sector should climb 2.7 percent in 2011 to $963 a month, while effective rents will rise 3.4 percent to $914 a month. Apartment owners will also be able to cut concessions to an eight-year low of 19 days of free rent.

“We have been fortunate to work with tremendous clients over the years, and these new assignments are proof of the strength of our service offering and the stability of these relationships,” said Dean Freeman, senior vice president and principal with Cassidy Turley.  “Whether we provide traditional property management services or work as a court-appointed receiver, our clients can expect the same world-class service they have come to trust in working with Cassidy Turley.”

The largest new assignment comes in the form of an 885,000-square-foot industrial property in La Crosse, Wis., where Cassidy Turley is representing an existing client.

In addition to more than 500,000 square feet of space in other projects, Cassidy Turley has been named court-appointed receiver for the following projects in the first quarter of 2011:

· Centennial Ridge, located in Eagan. Minn., is a 11,602-square-foot retail center with 4,000 square feet of space available. Angela Samargia is the property manager and Molly Townsend is the leasing agent.

· Plymouth Court is a 52,000-square-foot office building in Plymouth, Minn. Samargia is the property manager and Kai Thomsen and Will Buckley are marketing the 16,000 square feet available for lease.