Boston Investor Pays $38M for 120,000-SF Center

LAKE FOREST, CA-Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. of Boston has acquired the 119,549-square-foot Lake Forest Village shopping center, a grocery-anchored neighborhood center, from Edgewood Realty Partners of South Pasadena, CA for nearly $38.5 million. The shopping center, at 24251 Muirlands Blvd., was 97.1% leased at the time of the sale and is occupied by a tenant roster including Albertsons supermarket, Sav-On Drugs, and Starbucks.

According to Thomas Taranto, director of acquisitions, asset and portfolio management at Intercontinental, the Boston-based investment adviser and real estate operating company chose the shopping center for its combination of “location, captive market and high barriers to entry.” The location provides 1,400 feet of frontage along Muirlands Boulevard and Ridge Route Drive, major thoroughfares in Lake Forest, and is approximately one mile to the north of the Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5), one of the main freeways bisecting Orange County.

Lake Forest Village was developed between 1972 and 1977 on a site of approximately 11 acres and was renovated in 1996. In addition to the Albertsons, Sav-On and Starbucks, other tenants include local, regional, and national credit tenants such as CVS, AutoZone and Avon. Lake Forest Village is part of a South Orange County retail submarket where vacancy declined slightly to 4.5% in the third quarter, according to a report from CB Richard Ellis, which noted that vacancy ticked up slightly in some other submarkets of the county, where the countywide average retail vacancy stood at 4.8% at the end of the quarter. Average asking lease rates rank as some of the highest in the county at $3.21 per square foot per month, triple-net.

Intercontinental, which operates a Los Angeles area office in Century City, acquired the shopping center on behalf of US Real Estate Investment Fund LLC in a transaction that was brokered by CB Richard Ellis. Intercontinental represented itself in the transaction, with CBRE’s Todd Goodman and Preston Fetrow in the company’s Newport Beach office representing the seller.