Retail Deals Top 90,000 SF, Include Record Price

[IMGCAP(1)]LONG BEACH, CA-The Regency Centers REIT of Jacksonville, FL has acquired a 67,730-sf center here, and in Los Angeles an 11,761-sf single-tenant property has sold for a record price per sf for its neighborhood, according to principals and brokers involved in the two retail deals. Regency bought its property from Honolulu-based A&B Properties; the single-tenant property in Los Angeles was a Coco’s restaurant site that Coco’s Bakery Restaurant of Calsbad, CA bought in a deal that was brokered by the Charles Dunn Co.

A&B Properties Inc., which is the real estate subsidiary of publicly held Alexander & Baldwin Inc., reports that it sold the 67,730-sf center, called Marina Shores, following an unsolicited offer from Regency Centers. The center is a three-building property on the Pacific Coast Highway adjacent to the Long Beach Marketplace. The center was 98% occupied at the close of the sale, with major tenants including Whole Foods, Petco and Boater’s World.

A&B Properties intends to re-invest the proceeds in replacement properties via tax-deferred 1031 exchanges. Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but Norb Buelsing, executive vice president of A&B Properties Inc., called it “a very favorable unsolicited offer.”

[IMGCAP(2)]In the Los Angeles transaction, Jonathan Ahron, David Aschkenasy and David Eitches of GVA Worldwide partner Charles Dunn Co. report that the sale of the Coco’s property was one of three recent retail deals that the trio closed. The Coco’s site is at 8727 W. Pico Blvd. and sold for a record amount paid per sf Pico, according to the Dunn brokers.

“When you consider the downturn in the financial market and the state of the economy, it’s apparent that property in a great location will continue to sell, and sometimes, price doesn’t seem to be an issue,” Ahron observes. The 11,761-sf property, which includes a 5,173-sf Coco’s restaurant, sold for $3.6 million, or about $700 per sf.

The other two transactions involved a 5,532-sf property at 8528-8532 W. Pico Blvd. and a 5,488-sf property at 10616-10618 W. Pico that will be occupied by a Domino’s Pizza. “These are transactions where everything seemed to line up just right,” Ahron says. “We not only had a record for square footage and a triple-net transaction, but we also had two national tenants involved, and the Domino’s property closed escrow in 12 days. That doesn’t happen often.