Minneapolis-based Wall paid $51.25 million for the 462-unit Crystal Village apartments at 3010-3060 and 3131 Sumter Ave. N., according to certificates of real estate value made public on Wednesday. The 51-year-old complex is in the northeast quadrant of Highway 169 and 55. The property is the second-largest of 31 apartment properties Twin Cities-based BT&A put up for sale last year, and is now the largest complex Wall owns.

The largest BT&A transaction out of the portfolio came on Nov. 15 when Golden Valley-based Bigos Management paid $66 million for the 540-unit Villages on McKnight at 165-183 McKnight Road N. in St. Paul.

The Crystal Village sale, which closed on Jan. 15, works out to $110,931 per unit, below the $132,960 Twin Cities average, according to the Finance & Commerce Apartment Sales Tracker. The tracker has recorded the sale of 49,500 apartment units since 2011.

Hennepin County values Crystal Village at $32.8 million for tax purposes.

Wall purchased Crystal Village as part of a 1031 exchange after selling in October the 196-unt Village Green apartments at 460 Mississippi St. NE in Fridley for about $25 million, said Elizabeth Lee, Wall’s vice president of acquisitions. The company searched for about two years for a property with about twice as many apartments as Village Green, she said in a Thursday interview.

“We looked at a lot of properties,” Lee said, noting that Villages on McKnight was one of them.

The 10-building Crystal Village offers units ranging in size from a 439-square-foot studios, to two bedroom apartments measuring 936 square feet of space. The average rental rate in the complex is $914 a month, according to CoStar. That is less than $1,188 Twin Cities average tracked by the most recent Apartment Trends report from Marquette advisors.

Amenities at Crystal Village include two outdoor swimming pools, laundry rooms on almost every floor of the three story buildings and covered parking, according to the complex’s website.

Crystal Village has a 0.9-percent vacancy rate, CoStar shows. The apartment vacancy rate Crystal is 1.2 percent, according to the Apartment Trends report.

Wall Cos. made the purchase as it moves forward with development on mixed-use apartments and retail space at the Malcolm Yards project in Minneapolis’ Prospect Park neighborhood. Wall is planning a 145-unit market-rate apartment building with 33,000 square feet of commercial space, a 142-unit affordable apartment building and a 16,500-square-foot food hall for the 4.69-acre project site, which is bounded by Malcolm Avenue to the east and 29th Avenue Southeast to the west. The Minneapolis Planning Commission is considering on Jan. 28 whether to recommend a planned unit development designation for the site.

Wall has developed and owned more than 1,200 apartment or condominium units, and more than 2 million square feet of retail, office, and industrial property, according to its website. The company plans to own Crystal Village long term, and possibly in essentially the same condition it purchased the property, Lee said.

“We’re working on determining on what our next moves will be, if any,” she said of future improvements and renovations. “If we find there is demand from residents for improvements, we’re happy to entertain those.”

Wall paid toward the “upper end of where we wanted to go” for Crystal Village, Lee said. The competition for available apartment properties in the Twin Cities contributed to that.

“It’s hard to buy apartments today,” she said.

The Crystal sale marks the final closing for the BT&A portfolio, said CBRE Senior Vice President Ted Abramson this week. The Minneapolis office of CBRE marketed BT&A’s portfolio. BT&A and several other companies owned by the same Minnesota family put the 1,865 apartments in the portfolio on the market because it was “time for the family to sell,” Abramson said.