Supervalu Inc. is moving its headquarters back to its old home in Eden Prairie.
The Eden Prairie-based retailer has started renovating its former headquarters, a vacant building at 11840 Valley View Road in Eden Prairie, where it intends to relocate about 1,000 employees from its current space at 7075 Flying Cloud Drive, said spokesman Jeff Swanson.
The 185,000-square-foot, 35-year-old Valley View building is about a half-mile west of the current headquarters. Supervalu (NYSE: SVU) has been trying to sell its former HQ since 2012, when it hired CBRE Group to sell the building and 73-acre campus that overlooks Bryant Lake, but no deal ever came together. The property had an initial asking price of $28.5 million.
Supervalu's inability to sell the campus turned out to be a good thing, giving it flexibility as its lease expiration approaches in 2015 at the Valley View campus. That building, which happens to be the former headquarters of Best Buy Co. Inc., has been Supervalu's official headquarters since 2010. It's owned by Liberty Property Trust, based in Malvern, Pa.
Supervalu will start moving employees this fall, Swanson said. The move should take three or four months. He declined to estimate how much the company plans to spend on the renovations.
"We're going to make it comfortable for our employees ... while also being cost-conscious," Swanson said. "We own that building. It makes better sense."
It could also be a morale boost for the headquarters workers.
"It's fair to say that employees were very excited," Swanson said. "It's a great location with walking trails and Bryant Lake right out our back door."
Supervalu also will move its test kitchen and lab store from the Flying Cloud Drive space to its West Region Office in Hopkins. That facility, next to Highway 169, also houses Supervalu's administrative, sales, merchandise and marketing for its independent grocery customers.
Supervalu's employee headcount has fluctuated greatly in the past decade. It boomed after Supervalu's acquisition of most of the assets of the Albertsons grocery chain in 2006. The company struggled to manage the debt it took on with the Albertsons deal and went through a series of changes in leadership. In 2013, it sold off several chains, including Albertson's, to refocus itself as more of a distributor and less of a retailer. As of March 26, 2013, Supervalu had 2,700 corporate and store-support jobs at its headquarters in Eden Prairie.
Supervalu still owns the Cub Foods brand in the Twin Cities, which includes some company-owned and some franchised stores. The Cub headquarters in Stillwater is not impacted by the shift in office space in Eden Prairie.