Grocery Center Brings Nearly $29M

HEMET, CA-Hemet Village West LLC of Beverly Hills has acquired the 196,000-sf Village West Center at the southeast corner of West Florida Avenue and Sanderson Avenue from BHI DOVER-XVI of Santa Monica for $28.9 million, according to Reza Investment Group (RIG) of Irvine, which brokered the transaction. The 22-acre center is anchored by a Vons supermarket and includes tenants such as Longs Drugs, Hometown Buffet, Michaels, Ross Dress for Less and Pier 1 Imports. Reza Etedali of RIG tells GlobeSt.com that the sales are among $100 million of grocery-anchored retail properties to close in the past month in Orange and Los Angeles counties and the Inland Empire.The sale of the Village West Center comes several months after the center was refinanced by its former owners, according to a GlobeSt.com report in June. The center, which was built in 1982 and had been owned by the sellers since 1999, was 100% occupied at the time of the recent sale. The center also recently signed Michael's Arts & Crafts to a 10-year lease. Etedali represented the seller, with the buyer represented by Steve Daneman of Daneman's Realty.In an Orange County transaction, reported previously on GlobeSt.com, US Millennium LP of Huntington Beach purchased the 220,000-sf Fountain Valley Town Center at the southwest corner of Brookhurst Street and Edinger Avenue from Lestralaur Fountain Valley Partners Ltd. of Washington State. The closings of the Hemet and Fountain Valley properties, along with the sales of two other grocery-anchored centers in Los Angeles County for nearly $40 million, Etedali says, are evidence that grocery-anchored centers remain a favorite choice of investors.