Local Partnership Puts Silver Spring Retail on Market 

SILVER SPRING, MD-A local partnership is putting a strip mall here for sale, with a call for offers expected to go out on Friday. Located close to the District’s border at 8601-53 Spring Center, off of 16th St. and East-West Highway, the 50,000-square-foot retail center is 98% occupied. The asking price, according to Kirk M. Knight, associate director at Marcus & Millichap’s National Retail/Office group, is $16.7 million. 

Few retail properties have traded, or been put on the market for that matter, making establishing a comp difficult. That is largely due to a buyer-seller disconnect on price expectations that Knight says is only now starting to realign. "All of the patient money that was waiting for assets to come to market during the downturn is losing its patience," he tells GlobeSt.com. "The consensus is that we are at the bottom of the market, so buyers and sellers are feeling more secure in pulling the trigger." 

This particular property, he says, is a good option for a company that wants a foothold in the DC-area or Mid-Atlantic market and cannot have its first choice: grocery-anchored retail. "Retail buyers almost always favor grocery-anchored retail, but the lack of product means it is not in the cards for most investors," Knight says. 

Indeed, there was one notable investment sale of a grocery-anchored shopping center in the Washington Metro-area suburbs through April 2010, according to Delta Associates: Atapco Properties purchased the 79,000-square-foot, Giant Food-anchored Main Street Station in Loudoun County for $14.2 million, or $179 per square foot. In 2009, Delta said, there were only two grocery-anchored sales here, totaling $78.5 million.