The 42-year-old, 500,000-sf open-air mall, at NW27th Avenue and 79th Street, is one of the earliest open-air retail centers in South Florida.

Area brokers tell GlobeSt.com the $23.10 per-sf price is unusually low for a retail property when in recent months, average prices have been in the $80-per-sf to $100-per-sf range for comparable properties.

The reason: The property, which was built in 1960, needs another facelift and will undergo a multi-million-dollar renovation and redevelopment, Richard Tarquinio, first vice president with the Miami office of CB Richard Ellis Inc., tells GlobeSt.com.

Tarquinio, along with Lee S. Sobel, an associate with the Investment Properties Group of CB Richard Ellis Inc.'s Miami office, represented the buyer in the transaction. Over the years, the property already has been renovated a couple of times.

UrbanAmerica purchases inner-city, income-producing retail and office developments and repositions them. This property goes along with that strategy, Tarquinio says.

"It's going to be a redevelopment, re-tenanting," Tarquinio says. An additional four acres of land came with the property and can be developed as well. Specific development plans are not yet determined. They're formulating their plan right now, Tarquinio says.

"They will keep some of it, tear down some, reface, and with additional land, [they will] have the option to build some more retail or a residential component," the broker says.

"You have the capability of doing some outparcels," Tarquinio tells GlobeSt.com. There is no target date for completion of repositioning plans, he says.

Northside is 85%-occupied. Current major tenants at the center include McDonald's, Walgreens, Foot Locker and Payless Shoe Source.

Rents for local tenants run in the neighborhood of $10 to $12 per sf. The rent is $6 per sf to $10 per sf for credit tenants.,p>In a Nov. 11, 2001 interview with the Miami Herald, Northside's longtime manager, Donald G. Stevenson, called the property "a dinosaur."

He said the property was "a 1959 Buick in the year 2001, but it rides comfortably and it's functional."

Instant Insights /

NY's UrbanAmerica Picks Up $11.55M Bargain in Northside Shopping Center

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