1M-SF Mall Gets Grubb & Ellis as Leasing Agent

By Carrie Rossenfeld, special to GlobeSt.com

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Simon Property Group is
looking “outside of the box”
for tenants to lease up Hilltop Mall.

(Mark Your Calendars: RealShare REAL ESTATE 2012, March 22^nd in Los Angeles).

WALNUT CREEK, CA-Real estate company Simon Property Group is looking “outside of the box” for tenants to lease up Hilltop Mall, newly signed leasing agent Grubb & Ellis tells GlobeSt.com. Aside from traditional retailers, Grubb & Ellis will aggressively market the property for medical offices as well as family-entertainment and education uses including restaurants, rock climbing, indoor soccer and satellite locations for vocational and trade schools.

“We’re not just after retailers,” Adria Giacomelli, a senior associate with Grubb & Ellis, tells GlobeSt.com. “We’re staying open-minded, calling up every one of the uses I mentioned and seeing if we can get tours and interest.”

The 1.1-million-square-foot center has 180,000 square feet of vacant space, which is mostly shop space, Giacomelli continues. “We’re talking to a tenant who wants 90,000 square feet of contiguous space, and we would have to build up for them. We are trying to accommodate their requests, figuring out what it would cost to make it work for a tenant that’s going to enhance the center.”

Giacomelli adds that building up the mall would require elevators, which cost $250,000 to construct, in addition to other construction that could cost Simon more than $500,000 to complete. Despite the price, she says, Simon is not ruling out this option.

Simon handles the leasing for all of its other retail properties, but has retained Grubb & Ellis to do a “mom and pop outreach” for the Richmond Mall, which has not been faring as well as some of the other centers in the area, Giacomelli continues. While the region has suffered some crime in the recent past, security has been beefed up in the Richmond area, alleviating the problem, she adds.

Simon could not be reached for comment by GlobeSt.com before deadline.

Categories: West, Retail, Leasing, San Francisco