Lee & Associates Arizona's Jan Fincham, principal, and Patrick Dempsey, partner, negotiated the 2001 close-out sale. The five-year-old neighborhood center is located at the southwest corner of Scottsdale Road and Carefree Highway in a corridor with the high-end demographics long associated with North Scottsdale.

"It's one of the nicest assets in Scottsdale," Fincham tells GlobeSt.com. Two years ago, Westwood closed a $40-million acquisition for Scottsdale's Sonora Village from the same seller, JEP Terravita Holdings, an asset of the Pederson Co. of Phoenix. Pederson developed the center and held true to its reputation to stabilize and sell.

The closing marked the fifth high-profile retail complex that Fincham and Dempsey sold in 2001. Terravita Marketplace is an Albertsons grocery-anchored center in a neighborhood where the average selling price of a home tips the scale at $450,000. "Westwood obviously was attracted by the high income per household and spending power of the residents in the area," says Fincham. The center's other key tenants are Walgreens and Good Egg.

Fincham said Terravita Marketplace never officially hit the market. He took the deal to Westwood after learning the center might be for sale. The transaction closed in 90 days, undoubtedly reflective of the Phoenix retail market and the buyer's strength.