LAS VEGAS—LBG Real Estate Companies, and partner Blue Vista Capital Management, have sold Southwest Marketplace grocery-anchored property in Las Vegas.

The property was sold to Philips Edison for $30.4 million.

Located at the Rainbow Boulevard and Windmill Lane, Southwest Marketplace is a 115,720 square foot, class A shopping center anchored by Smith's Food and Drug and Smith's Gas (a wholly owned subsidiary of The Kroger Co.). The property was originally developed in 2007. Smith's ground leases its premises, which was included in the sale. The sale also included two completed building pads for future development.

“LBG purchased Southwest Marketplace in an off market transaction in early 2011 at a time when Las Vegas economic fundamentals were just starting to improve however not to the point to be widely attractive to outside investors,” said Leslie Lundin, principal of LBG. “Being a dominant Smith's grocery-anchored center with excellent sales in one of the strongest Las Vegas submarkets, LBG saw this as an opportunity to purchase an otherwise core type asset at a distressed price thereby capitalizing on the distress and the impending market strengthening”

When LBG acquired the property, the shops were just 50% leased, with several tenants on short term leases. LBG's in house leasing team was successful in stabilizing the shopping center and during LBG's ownership, they were able to boost occupancy to 95%.

“Despite the sluggish Las Vegas leasing environment, LBG's proactive and creative hands on approach to leasing and asset management resulted in successfully stabilizing the existing tenant base as well as sourcing new tenants to achieve occupancy and rental rates that outperformed the market,” said David Goldman, principal of LBG. “With this strong tenant base, we expect Phillips Edison will continue to do very well with the property.”