A real estate investment trust has agreed to buy RBC Plaza in downtown Minneapolis for $126.5 million, according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
 
The 40-story office tower located at 60 South Sixth Street is currently owned by Toronto-based Brookfield Properties and consists of about 609,368 square feet of rentable office space and about 68,677 square feet of rentable retail space.
 
The buyer—Newport, California-based KBS Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc.—plans to invest approximately $26.6 million in renovations over the next four years, which will include converting about 32,000 square feet of retail space into office space, KBS said in its SEC filing.
 
RBC Plaza is among the 15-largest office buildings in Minnesota based on square feet of net leasable space. Built in 1991, the facility was 83 percent leased to 34 tenants as of January 1, according to KBS. The building’s tenants include RBC Wealth Management, which is part of Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada, and national law firm Fish & Richardson.
 
Brookfield Properties, which has long had a significant presence in the Twin Cities in terms of real estate holdings, announced in 2009 that it will exit the market and sell its local properties, which include Gaviidae Common I and II on Nicollet Mall. The company recently sold 33 South Sixth—which is also in downtown Minneapolis and includes City Center—to San Francisco-based Shorenstein Properties for a reported $207 million.
 
Brookfield is among Minnesota’s 20-largest commercial property managers based on commercial space it manages in the state, which totaled 3.1 million square feet as of April 2012.