SANTA MONICA, CA-The Macerich Co. has sold three malls in Colorado, Oklahoma and Arkansas for $390 million to a newly formed entity called Midwest Mall Properties that plans other acquisitions as well. The sale is part of the locally based shopping center REIT's ongoing strategy of selling non-core assets and redeploying them into development and redevelopment.
Brock Martin, a principal at Orion Capital Partners in Little Rock, AR who served as adviser on the acquisitions, tells GlobeSt.com that the buyer is a new entity formed for the express purpose of acquiring the three Macerich malls. Martin says that he will also be looking for future acquisitions on behalf of Midwest Mall Properties, which will be based in Springdale, AR.
The three properties that Midwest bought are the one-million-sf Citadel Mall in Colorado Springs, the 1.2-million-sf Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City and the 821,000-sf Northwest Arkansas Mall in Fayetteville, AR. The three principals of Midwest include John Flake, a partner at Orion, along with Sam Mathias and Doyle Rogers. The three already own about nine million sf of office and retail properties under various entities.
Martin tells GlobeSt.com that Midwest will be looking for additional properties, primarily focusing on "Midwest and Heartland opportunities." The new firm financed its acquisition of the Macerich malls with its own equity, along with the assumption of a loan through Bear Stearns and a note with LaSalle Bank of Chicago.
According to Charles Waldron, SVP for property management with Macerich, the disposition of the three malls continues the REIT's ongoing fine-tuning of its portfolio. "We constantly evaluate the balance within our portfolio, and from time to time we decide to adjust our holdings both regionally and in terms of property type, when we find the right buyer," Waldron tells GlobeSt.com.
The sales of the three properties to Midwest follow the dispositions by Macerich of other non-core assets in the third quarter that included Great Falls Marketplace and Holiday Village Mall in Great Falls, MT; Greeley Mall in Greeley, CO and the Parklane Mall in Reno, NV.
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