Koreatown Plaza Sells for $91M in Los Angeles

Koreatown Plaza, a 140K SF enclosed mall, has been sold by Los-Angeles-based Korean Shopping Center Inc. to LA-based INI Investment Corp. for $91M.

The $453 per SF price on the retail center, located at Ninth Street and Western Avenue, makes the deal the priciest retail shopping center transaction in LA’s Koreatown submarket in the past decade, according to CoStar data.

The plaza was developed by Korean Shopping Center and opened in 1988. The indoor mall is anchored by an H-Mart, an Asian-American grocery chain, and features a food court.

CBRE listed the Koreatown Plaza for sale in March 2020.

“This center has benefitted from its strong upscale tenant base that is relatively e-commerce resistant as the online retail evolution continues,” CBRE said, in a statement.

According to CoStar, Koreatown’s retail market, encompassing approximately 11M SF, has a vacancy rate of 3.8%, which is below the average of 5% in Los Angeles.

The largest overall retail transaction in the SoCal market this year also involved an indoor mall, in Arcadia. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, as part of its ongoing divestiture of US mall assets, sold the Westfield Santa Anita mall for $538M, said to be the largest retail deal since 2018.

The buyer of the 1.5-million-square-foot property in Arcadia was not disclosed. The transaction, brokered by Eastdil Secured, translates into $363 per square foot. The mall is 96% leased and posted sales of $611 per square foot, with sales reaching 93% of pre-pandemic levels, the company said in a release.

URW, Europe’s largest mall operator, acquired the Santa Anita mall in 2018 as part of its $15.7B acquisition of Australia-based Westfield, which had owned and operated the mall since 2007.

Earlier this year, URW revealed it would exit the US market and sell its portfolio of US properties by the end of 2023, GlobeSt.com reported. At the beginning of 2022, the portfolio encompassed 24 malls—including some of the largest and highest-profile mall properties in the US—and five other CRE assets.

In December 2020, California Marketplace, a Koreatown shopping center with more than two dozen tenants, sold for $57.5 million. CBRE said a private investment company purchased the property, paying 10% above asking price, from a private developer.

The three-story shopping center spans 80K SF feet at 450 S. Western Ave. and features a four-level parking structure. At the time of the sale, the property was 86% leased to 25 tenants, including Gaju Market Corp., Pacific City Bank, Myungrang Hot Dog and BMB Medical Group, according to CBRE.