Inland Acquires Cedar Center North

CLEVELAND—Inland Real Estate Corp., a publicly-traded REIT that owns and operates retail centers in the Midwest and the Southeast, has just acquired, in a joint venture with its partner PGGM, the Dutch pension fund advisor, another neighborhood shopping center, this time in suburban Cleveland.

The partners paid $15.4 million for Cedar Center North, a 61,400 square-foot shopping center located in South Euclid. PetSmart anchors the 90% leased center, which hosts other national retailers such as Panera, Starbucks, Five Guys, Chipotle, Jimmy Johns, Wing Stop, Sport Clips, Sprint and Huntington Learning Center.

“Cedar Center North is a vibrant, high-traffic center with a strong tenant base of in-demand retailers, restaurants and service providers, situated in an infill location with excellent demographics,” says Mark Zalatoris, the company's president and chief executive officer. “The acquisition complements our ownership of Cedar Center South and increases our footprint in the Cleveland area to five assets aggregating more than 651,000 square feet of high quality retail space.”

IRC and PGGM have been fairly active buyers. As reported in GlobeSt.com, for example, the partners recently paid $43.3 million in cash for Phase I of Newport Pavilion, a 471,800-square-foot grocery-anchored power center in suburban Newport, KY, just across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. And the partners also recently paid $26.3 million in cash for Argonne Village, a 113,000-square-foot center in Lakeville, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis.

Cedar Center North sits within walking distance of John Carroll University. According to Inland officials it draws from a population base of more than 131,500 with average household income of nearly $79,600. Whole Foods, located across the street in the Cedar Center South shopping center that the IRC-PGGM venture acquired in 2013, shadow anchors the center. Cedar Center North and Cedar Center South are on opposite corners in the Cedar Center Shopping District, a retail mainstay in the Cleveland area for over 50 years.

“We expect this substantial presence to help drive income growth through increased operating efficiencies and complementary leasing that optimizes the tenant mix at each center,” says Zalatoris.  

Including Cedar Center North, the IRC-PGGM joint venture portfolio now consists of 34 retail assets with nearly 4.6 million square feet of GLA.