HOUSTON-Weingarten Realty Investors has checked off another deal in its bid this year to sell $250 million to $350 million of non-core assets nationwide. The latest hand-off is the 304,300-sf Fondren Southwest Village.
New York City investment group, Surrey Equities LLC, has acquired a 78%-leased, 32.4-acre retail block that spans two hard corners of the high-traffic intersection at Fondren Road and Bellfort Avenue. The dealmakers aren't commenting about the sale price, but tax records show the holding is assessed at nearly $9.1 million. Given its dominance in the southwest sector, Fondren Southwest Village could have brought $80 per sf based on other retail trades of late 1970s-era centers, but a local market watcher says the actual price is too hard to nail down because it boils down to Weingarten's pent-up demand to sell.
Fondren Southwest, located at 11092-11311 Fondren Rd. and 6600-7590 W. Bellfort Ave., went on the market in early March and was under contract by April. George Cushing, senior vice president for Grubb & Ellis Co.'s Houston office, tells GlobeSt.com that the no-minimum listing brought in a half dozen offers. "Within that submarket, this is the dominant retail location," he says.
At closing, the center had 65 leased spaces and nine developed pad sites that are prime candidates to be severed and sold to 1031 exchange investors, according to the marketing flyer. Grubb & Ellis associate Wendy Vandeventer teamed with Cushing to broker the deal.
The locally based Weingarten, which acquired the asset in the mid-1980s, reported contractual and option rent income is $369,270 for the next decade and current NOI of $2.23 million. As for the lease roll, Cushing labels it as stable. "Weingarten completed a lot of renewals in the year leading up to the marketing and during the marketing," he says. "As a group, the tenants in there are in the top one-third or one-quarter of the units in their district."
A 32,948-sf Fiesta Grocery anchors a lineup with 30 national retailers. The ballpark rent range is $18 per sf to $22 per sf.
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