$6M Lands Wallace Plaza Center

FITCHBURG, MA-The Wallace Plaza Center is changing hands again after a 5-year tenure under Kent Realty Fitchburg LLC. The 127,460-sf retail property is being purchased for $6 million by Peace & Grace Realty LLC. The seller was represented by Thomas R. Blakely, CCIM and president of TRB & Associates. The buyer was represented by David Lenger of Keller Williams Realty.

TRB had repped the previous owners in 2003 for the sale to Kent and was brought on exclusively for this transaction by the seller. In a statement, Blakely explains that this deal in the current market is “a very complicated transaction that involved a loan assumption with Wells Fargo.” Currently, the center is anchored by Market Basket and Big Lots with 24,260 sf of climate-controlled storage space. The building sold for $6.75 million in 2003 while fully-leased. Under the current deal, 17,000 sf of the total 65,000 sf is empty.

Lenger tells GlobeSt.com, the new owners–a group of four friends who remain undisclosed–will add “new signage” and “significant capital improvements.” The building will get a facelift as the group will put “about a quarter-million dollars in, resurface the parking lot” and modernize the façade. Lenger remarks that the building has “tremendous upside potential” for profit in a good buyers market.

Retail centers are a solid value and recently, numerous properties have been changing hands. Two separate Walgreens-anchored retail centers went for <a href="/news/1206_1206/boston/172559-1.html$7 million in Foxborough and the other for $11 million in Danvers. Similarly, the former landmark harness racing track turned retail plaza–Roosevelt Raceway Center–was corralled for just over $103 million down in Westbury, NY.