Columbia Retail Sweetwater Plaza LP was the borrower of record, which acquired the four-year-old center in January from Sugarland Properties. The 93%-occupied center has Kroger and Walgreens as anchors. Their long-term leases run through 2017.
John Petersen of the Oregon office of L.J. Melody & Co. and Tom Fish and Steve Taylor, both with the Houston team, arranged the financing. Petersen tells GlobeSt.com that the center was acquired with internal funds. The permanent debt is an interest-only loan with an intermediate term. He's not disclosing the LTV, but did say the loan had "low leverage." That and its long-term creditworthy tenants sewed up the deal from Allstate's perspective.
Not only did were the financial dynamics excellent, in Petersen's opinion, but it was "easy to support a good loan" in the healthy Sugar Land submarket. "It is a well-conceived community with very good demographics," he points out.
Sweetwater Plaza is one of Fort Bend County's more prominent centers, one of 109 in an inventory of 11.7 million sf, according to the Greater Fort Bend Economic Development Council. The fast-growing county has another 497,000 sf of retail space under construction and three more ground-breakings planned before the year ends.
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