A&B Plans $36M Retail Center

VALENCIA, CA-A&B Properties Inc. of Honolulu, the real estate subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc., plans to develop a $36-million, 120,000-sf retail center here in a joint venture with Valencia-based Intertex Properties of California. The development partners, in their fifth project together, bought the 27.8-acre development site in October for $6.6 million. A&B and Intertex will build the center via a venture called Bridgeport Marketplace LLC. The center will be built on just over half of the 27.8-acre parcel, five acres of which will be dedicated to the City of Valencia for park purposes, with the balance to be sold to a third party. The development site is at Newhall Ranch Road and the McBean Parkway, one of the primary intersections in central Valencia. Tenants at Bridgeport Marketplace will include a specialty grocer, a national drugstore, shops, restaurants and services. Construction is expected to begin in early 2006. A&B says the site ranks high in development potential for a number of factors, including its location adjacent to existing major commercial development and growing residential neighborhoods, including 22,000 households and 63,000 residents within a three-mile radius. The project is about a half mile from the Valencia Industrial Center, the largest business park in Valencia at 10.2 million sf. Besides being A&B's fifth investment with Intertex, the new retail center will be A&B's sixth investment in the Santa Clarita Valley. Its four others with Intertex include the 63,000-sf Westridge Executive Plaza office building, which was completed in 2003 and is 95% occupied, plus three projects in the pre-development stage. The three under development are the 100,000-sf Center Pointe Marketplace retail project, the 62,000-sf Crossroads Plaza commercial center and 5.4 acres of commercial land in Rye Canyon Business Park. A&B's focus remains primarily in Hawaii, according to its president and CEO, Stanley Kuriyama, but it sees Valencia as a good locale for "investment opportunities that diversify our portfolio."