SILVER SPRING, MD-Prudential Insurance Co. of America has provided what is said to be a fixed-rate, long-term $22-million refinance loan on a 164,805-square-foot grocery-anchored retail asset here. Cassidy Turley’s Phil Mudd, Christian Miles and Brad Geiger arranged the financing on behalf of the owner--a joint venture between the Tower Cos. and Gingery Development Group, which originally developed the center in the 1960s.

The property, the Aspen Hill Shopping Center, is a fixture in the submarket, with 70% of its tenants national companies, Mudd tells GlobeSt.com. Other reasons why the loan was hotly pursued, he says, includes the asset’s infill location in what has become a high-traffic area. “From an underwriting point of view, it’s an extremely attractive shopping center,” he says. “There was a lot of interest in this loan, especially from life companies.”

Tenant sales in the property are well above national averages, according to Geiger. Another metric that wooed prospective lenders: vacancy in the center averaged less than one percent over the past five years.

Aspen Hill Shopping Center, which was renovated several years ago, is fully leased and anchored by Giant Foods and CVS. It also includes two pad sites with long-term leases to McDonald’s and Bank of America.

Life companies have a healthy appetite for Washington assets and, as this deal shows, that appetite is not limited to office and multifamily properties. “Perhaps it seems that is what they prefer,” Mudd says, “but that is because there are so many more office and multifamily assets in the area than retail.”