The deal included telecommunications equipment valued at nearly $1 million, which the company will sell off, says Bob Strachota, a Minneapolis commercial real estate appraiser and consultant who represented AGA. "The price they paid shows just how just how far the real estate market has fallen over the last few years," Strachota says.

The company expects it will need as much as 400,000 sf of office and manufacturing space during the next 10 years, notes Strachota, who is head of Shenehon Co. AGA had been talking with the city of Hopkins, MN, about building a new 115,000- sf building at a 31-acre in Hopkins that includes a vacant 624,000-sf distribution center owned by Supervalu Inc., the food wholesaler and retailer based in Eden Prairie, MN. After difficult negotiations with the city of Hopkins, AGA ended up "walking on the deal," Strachota says.

AGA Medical, now based in Golden Valley, MN, will move to the Qwest facility gradually throughout this year. They will need 10,000 sf as soon as possible, but will likely not finish the move until March of next year, when their lease runs out at their current facility. With 110 current employees, fast-growing company is cramped in the 41,000- sf facility it now leases.