CHARLOTTE—Riverview Commons Shopping Center just traded for $9 million. The retail asset is 93% occupied with Food Lion and Dollar General as anchors.

Benbrooke Realty Investment purchased the 59,020-square-foot shopping center. It was the first acquisition in a joint venture equity relationship Benbrooke structured with an offshore investment group.    

Michael Oestreich, principal of Benbrooke Realty, tells GlobeSt.com his team passed over three dozen shopping centers before deciding to acquire this retail asset. He cites three factors that attracted him to the deal: It was newly built in 2009; anchor sales are solid, and it’s located in a Charlotte suburb.

“Rock Hill is a growing suburb of Charlotte,” Oestreich says. “Over the past few years the area slowed down with the national recession but it’s well poised for growth as Charlotte recovers.”

Riverview Commons Shopping Center is located at 1912 Mt. Gallant Road. Oestreich describes it as the epitome of the type of grocery-anchored shopping center his firm is seeking. Specifically, his criteria includes occupancy anywhere from 80% to the low 90s with some upside in leasing the remainder of the remaining small shops.  

With Riverview Commons, Benbrooke Realty also gets two two-acre outparcels that it can lease or resell. Benbrooke owns two other shopping centers in the Carolinas— Shops of Freedom in Charlotte and Creekside Shopping Center in Goose Creek— and is looking grow its retail footprint in the Carolinas

Benbrooke was self-represented by George Ackerman. David Webb of Berkeley Capital Advisors represented the undisclosed seller. Richard Lubkin, a Benbrooke principal, worked with Rick Lechtman of Ackman Ziff to arrange acquisition financing through Royal Bank of Scotland.