JonnyPops triples its footprint, buying Plymouth office building for $10M

JonnyPops, a company known for its wholesome ice pops, has purchased a Plymouth office building for just under $10 million, adding to its 80,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Elk River.

According to a certificate of real estate value filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the building at 9800 59th Ave. in the Twin Cities’ northwestern suburb sold for $9.9 million, less than a third of what the property sold for in 2018.

Spinnaker Real Estate Holdings LLC is the buyer and shares an address, phone number and email with JonnyPops.

The frozen fruit and ice cream treat maker started in 2011 in founder Connor Wray and Erik Brust’s St. Olaf College dorm room. JonnyPops previously headquartered in St. Louis Park before moving to Elk River in 2022.

JonnyPops will use the building primarily for research and development as well as some office space, said company spokeswoman Jess Horst.

“It is going to be our innovation center,” Horst said. “A place to keep coming up with our magical products.”

The 19-year-old Plymouth property, called 9800 Bass Creek, is a four-story building with 160,000 square feet, according to commercial brokerage CBRE’s listing. Set in the Bass Creek Business Park near the intersection of Bass Lake Road and Hwy. 169, it has on-site food service, a fitness center, an indoor basketball court and covered parking.

Another Minnesota company, Sleep Number, formerly called the Plymouth offices home, back when the company was called Select Comfort and before it moved to downtown Minneapolis in 2017.

The current seller of the building was Ohio-based Cantel Medical, which purchased the property in 2018 for $31 million, according to state records. Hennepin County records show the property’s assessed market value in 2024 was about $23.45 million.

The decrease in value is not unusual for office buildings facing tough market conditions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The establishment of hybrid or remote working arrangements pushed Twin Cities office vacancies to highs approaching 30%, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield. Property values have, in turn, dropped sharply.

For example, a couple of downtown Minneapolis office towers have also recently sold at steep discounts, including Ameriprise Financial Center in January for $6.25 million, down 97% from its previous sale price of $200 million nine years ago.

But Jim Freytag of CBRE, which brokered the sale, said the Plymouth building’s price cut is not because of lingering pandemic effects.

“It’s related to demand in the office market for large blocks of space, particularly vacant buildings,” he said. “There are limited number of users in the market for space of the size.”

More workers are returning to the office, Freytag said, but users of bigger properties “have been slower to build momentum.”

Freytag said the seller “was glad to see [that] a growing company like JonnyPops can use the building to help grow their business.”

Katie Galioto of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.