$56M Takes Center Anchored by Wal-Mart

The Shoppes at South Bay is at 190th Street and Normandie Avenue, close to Torrance, and is anchored by a 147,000-sf Wal-Mart.

Cypress Equities was represented by REZA Investment Group of Irvine, including Reza Etedali, Brian Garrigan, Terry Bortnick and Aaron Bettencourt. The buyer was represented by Tom Nguyen of NAI Capital.

The shop tenants occupy approximately 25% of the space, which Etedali says is popular with retailers because Wal-Mart drives traffic that produces higher sales throughout the center. According to Bortnick, tenants' sales more than doubled at the other recently sold Wal-Mart-anchored center, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, after the big retailer opened there two years ago.

Etedali tells GlobeSt.com that the South Bay property attracted about 15 offers from prospective buyers eager to own a center anchored by Wal-Mart. "It's rare for Wal-Mart to lease. They like to own their properties," Etedali says.

In the other recent sale that involved a Wal-Mart anchored property, Capri Capital Advisors of Chicago acquired the 850,000-sf Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza at the intersection of Crenshaw and Martin Luther King boulevards for $136 million on behalf of an institutional client. Capri bought the property from Hager Pacific Properties of Newport Beach in a transaction brokered by Etedali's group.

Both properties generated "tremendous response from both private and institutional groups," note Etedali. One key to the Shoppes at South Bay was the buyer's willingness to meet the seller's expedited schedule for closing, he says.