Urstadt REIT Acquires Westchester Shopping Center

HARRISON, NY—Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc. of Greenwich, CT has increased its retail holdings in Westchester County with the $10-million purchase of the Harrison Shopping Center here.

The retail REIT paid all cash for the 25,000-square-foot property. The property is anchored by an A&P Fresh Supermarket, which will be replaced by a prominent grocer upon bankruptcy court approval, company officials say. The shopping center was built in 1957 by the selling family and has been a mainstay in downtown Harrison since it initial development.

Willing Biddle, president of Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc. says in a prepared statement, “We are very pleased that we continue to acquire grocery-anchored shopping centers in the metro-NY market in a challenging acquisitions environment. Harrison is an important commuter town and we now own the best position in town, directly across from the Metro-NY train station with express service to Manhattan.”

James Aries, director of acquisitions at Urstadt Biddle adds, “Our long-standing relationship with the selling family which began in a management role, enabled us to close on this acquisition quickly and quietly which was critical to the selling family. Harrison is less than 10 miles from our home office in Greenwich, CT and we look forward to making improvements to the center which will largely be driven by the replacement grocer.”

In April of this year, Urstadt Biddle made news when it announced it had entered into a contract to sell its underperforming 190,000-square-foot Westchester Pavilion mall property in White Plains to Maple and Broadway Holdings, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lennar Corp. through its Lennar Multi-Family Communities, LLC subsidiary.

A representative of Lennar appeared last week before the White Plains Common Council to begin the site plan approval process on its $277-million mixed-use plan that will feature 707 rental apartment units in two 24-story tower buildings and 95,000 square feet of retail. At press time, the sale of the Westchester Pavilion property between Urstadt and Lennar had not closed. Lennar has a pending application before the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency for possible incentives in connection with its development proposal. In its announcement in April, Urstadt stated that it expects the transaction to close at the end of fiscal 2015 or early fiscal 2016. No financial details on the transaction have been released.