Paper Recycling Firm Buys New Brighton Warehouse

Pioneer hopes to begin operating at its new building in the second quarter of next year.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): An entity related to recycling firm Pioneer Industries International has paid $13.8 million for a former produce warehouse in New Brighton. The deal will bring up to 70 jobs to the city and rejuvenate a long-vacant building.

Lakeview Point Property LLC acquired the 110,692-square-foot building at 600 Lakeview Point Drive from Special Assets & Advisory Group LLC, a receiver for Brooks New Brighton LLC, according to a certificate of real estate value made public Wednesday.

Robert Bayer, a court-appointed receiver, said the building had been occupied by produce company H. Brooks for about 20 years, but has been sitting vacant since 2021. H. Brooks vacated the building and ultimately filed for bankruptcy.

Under its new ownership, the building will house a paper sorting and distribution operation and about 65 to 70 people will work there, Tom Harrison, Pioneer’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. A secure document shredding facility currently located in Plymouth will also move there, he said.

The New Brighton building will replace Pioneer’s existing operation at 155 Irving Ave. N. in Minneapolis.  Harrison said there’s “redevelopment going on where we are now in Minneapolis and the handwriting was on the wall.”

Built in 1993 and renovated in 2001, the building features 97,000 square feet of refrigerated area, 16-foot-high dock, 26- to 30-foot clear height and two grade-level doors, according to a marketing brochure from CBRE.

CBRE said the building sits on an 11.52-acre site, which offers “quick access” to I-35W and is a half mile from the I-35W and County Road D West Interchange. The site is framed by Interstate 35W, Long Lake Road, County Road D and Lake Jones.

Earlier this year, the city of New Brighton approved a special use permit for the recycling operation. A special use permit was required because the proposed operation didn’t fall within the allowable uses for the light industrial-zoned site.

The planned paper recycling and redistribution use is “very similar to a recently authorized similar use” in the former Donatelle building at 301 County Road E2 West, “but at a much larger scale,” according to city documents.

Pioneer hopes to begin operating at its new building in the second quarter of next year. Harrison said the building will require some modifications, which will take several months. The modifications are mostly about “removing what was there,” he said.

“There’s a lot of stuff, especially on the outside, that needs some tender loving care and we’re starting that process now. We’re anxious to get up there, but we want to make sure we do everything right, too,” he said.

Pioneer has been under its current ownership since 1974, but the roots of the business through previous owners go back to the 1890s. Besides Minnesota, the company has facilities in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, according to its website.

On its website, Pioneer says its main business is “to service the printing industry and commercial cardboard compactor companies by taking their loose scrap paper products and packaging them in a form where they can efficiently be shipped to a mill where they will further be pulped and manufactured into a finished product.”

Courtesy: www.globalnewswire.com

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