ANAHEIM HILLS, CA-De Rito Partners Development Inc. has established a new office headed by former Ralphs supermarket SVP Tom Gast and plans to spend more than $100 million acquiring properties in California and Nevada. The Phoenix-based company has named 26-year industry veteran Gast president and partner of De Rito Partners West.
Based here in Anaheim Hills, Gast will direct an effort that will focus on acquisition and development of retail, mixed-use and redevelopment opportunities, according to Marty De Rito, CEO of the firm. De Rito says the $100 million expansion in California and Nevada is planned over the next 18 to 24 months.
The expansion represents a step out of De Rito's home market of Phoenix, where the company has developed 19 retail properties totaling more than five million sf, primarily in the Phoenix metropolitan market. Among the projects that it has under way is the 236-acre, 1.3-million-sf Mesa Riverview in Metropolitan Phoenix, a joint venture that De Rito is developing with Kimco Developers Inc., a subsidiary of the publicly held Kimco Realty Corp. REIT.
Gast will pursue all retail opportunities, ranging from ground-up shopping center development and acquisition of existing properties to value-add and/or other deals. With Gast heading the West Coast operation, De Rito expects to acquire holdings totaling more than one million sf over the next three to five years, De Rito says.
Gast, in his former role as SVP for the Los Angeles-based Ralphs Grocery Co. division of the Kroger Co. of Cincinnati, was responsible for overseeing new and existing store development projects for Ralphs supermarkets and Food 4 Less in California and Nevada. Before his post with Ralphs, Gast served as the director of real estate for American Stores Properties Inc. until its merger with Ralphs in 1995.
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