The most expensive purchase by the Oak Brook, IL-based REIT wasBirmingham, AL-based River Ridge Shopping Center, a one-year-old,162,062-sf, 100%-leased property sold by locally based Ridge RetailCo. LLC for $29.64 million or $182.89 per sf.

River Ridge anchors are Best Buy, 45,504 sf; Linens 'N Things,35,000 sf; Staples, 23,942 sf; and Cost Plus, 17,790 sf. A SuperTarget store was not part of the transaction. Jason Lazarus, InlandReal Estate Acquisitions Inc. and outside attorneys CharlesBenvenuto and Andrew Viola negotiated for Inland. Jeffrey Bayer,Bayer Properties, represented the seller.

"The properties we've purchased over the past 12 months onbehalf of Inland Retail are comparable to the numbers you areseeing in the biggest mergers and acquisitions," Joe Cosenza,chairman, Inland Acquisitions Inc., says in a prepared statement."The difference is that we buy only the properties we choose. Inother words, we don't get stuck with properties we might nototherwise want to buy."