Passco Acquires Village at Orange for $100M

ORANGE, CA-Passco Real Estate Enterprises Inc. of Irvine has acquired the Village at Orange regional mall for $100 million in a tenant-in-common purchase and plans a repositioning to capitalize on a recently completed $30-million renovation of the approximately 858,000-sf property, according to William Winn, chief operating officer of Passco.

Winn, describing the newly acquired asset as "one of Orange County's destination regional malls," says the repositioning will include re-tenanting of the property through the addition of retailers such as Old Navy and a number of new restaurants. Passco acquired the mall from RB Village/Orange, LLC's I, II and III.The Village at Orange, formerly known as the Mall of Orange, is located on a 61-acre site on Tustin Avenue just west of the Newport Beach (55) Freeway. The 30-year-old center includes department stores Sears and JCPenney as well as Olive Garden, Todai, Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Co., Pasta Pomodoro, Chipotle and Red Robin. It is complemented by community center retailers such as Wal-Mart, Linens 'n Things, Cost Plus, Ross and Trader Joe's.Passco was represented in its acquisition by Wolfe Commercial, with the sellers represented by the AJ Ross company. The purchase is the first mall acquisition in Orange County for Passco, which last year completed one of the largest tenant-in-common transactions ever recorded when it bought the 1.2-million-sf Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry for $148 million.Passco specializes in providing 1031 tax exchange transactions including neighborhood and community retail centers, regional malls, multi-tenant industrial business park acquisitions and development and industrial and single family land entitlement. The company's portfolio consists of more than seven million sf of assets under management and development.