MARICOPA, ARIZ. — Thompson Thrift Retail Group, a wholly owned company of Indianapolis-based Thompson Thrift, has inked a deal for Sprouts Farmers Market to anchor Sonoran Creek Marketplace, the company’s $30 million retail center under development in Maricopa. The Phoenix-based specialty grocery chain is expected to open its 23,293-square-foot location in September 2021. Situated on 14 acres at the intersection of John Wayne Parkway and Edison Road, Sonoran Creek Marketplace will feature 75,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. Additional recently signed tenants include The Joint Chiropractic, State Farm Insurance, Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches and Filiberto’s Mexican Food. Also included in the development are Dutch Bros, Culver’s and Fast & Friendly Express Carwash, all of which are currently open for business. This is Thompson Thrift Retail Group’s first project in Maricopa, and the company’s 2021 Southwest pipeline is projected to include more than $120 million in volume across metro Phoenix.
Leasing Activity
RICHMOND, VA. — Trader Joe’s has signed a 12,995-square-foot lease at Stony Point Village in Richmond. The 114,347-square-foot property is located at 3096 Stony Point Road, nine miles west of downtown Richmond. The Monrovia, Calif.-based grocer will join tenants such as Good Foods Grocery, Gelati Celesti Ice Cream and Einstein Bros. Bagels. Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based Ziff Properties Inc. owns the shopping center.
STAMFORD, CONN — Berkeley Insurance Co., a subsidiary of Fortune 500 company W.R. Berkeley Corp., has signed a 63,173-square-foot office lease at Metro Center, a 285,258-square-foot building in Stamford. James Ritman of Newmark Knight Frank, along with internal representative Jeffrey Newman, handled the lease negotiations on behalf of the landlord, Empire State Realty Trust (NYCE: ESRT). Belinda Scanlon of Bernard Realty represented the tenant.
YUCCA VALLEY, CALIF. — T-Mobile has signed a lease to occupy 1,300 square feet of retail space at 57750 Twentynine Palms Highway in Yucca Valley. The end-cap location is within a shopping center anchored by Starbucks Coffee and Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill. The corporate T-Mobile store is expected to open by year-end. Roxy Klein of Progressive Real Estate Partners represented the undisclosed landlord in the deal.
SAN FRANCISCO — A majority of U.S. restaurants and cafés that closed their doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will remain closed for good, according to crowd-source review giant Yelp. In its September economic impact report, the San Francisco-based firm tallied 32,109 restaurants that were open and operating on March 1 were closed on Aug. 31. Of that total, 19,590 (61 percent) indicated they were permanently closed. Yelp tracks business closures via business owners marking their business as closed, including by changing their hours or through a COVID-19 banner on its Yelp page. The tech firm concedes that closure counts are likely an estimate as businesses not included in the report include those that remain open with curtailed hours and staffing, or because they have not yet updated their Yelp business pages to reflect closures. Yelp only counts closures that have been vetted by its User Ops team or have been updated directly by a business owner. According to Yelp’s findings, breakfast and brunch restaurants, burger joints, sandwich shops, dessert places and Mexican restaurants are among the types of restaurants with the highest rate of business closures. Restaurants that work well for delivery and takeout — such as pizza …
PHILADELPHIA — Nerd Street Gamers, a provider of infrastructure services for the esports industry, will open The Block, an esports campus at 401 N. Broad St. in Philadelphia. Christian Dyer and Jackie Balin of CBRE represented data center owner-operator Netrality, which owns the 1.3 million-square-foot building, in the lease negotiations. The space will not only function as Nerd Street Gamers’ new corporate headquarters, but it will also include global broadcast studios, dedicated training centers for professional teams and schools and educational space for community partners.
MESQUITE, TEXAS — Stream Realty Partners has negotiated a 203,040-square-foot industrial lease at Urban District 30 in the eastern Dallas suburb of Mesquite. For the tenant, online light bulb retailer 1000Bulbs.com, the lease represents an expansion of 60 percent of its previous warehouse capacity. Matt Dornak and Drew Feagin of Stream Realty Partners represented the landlord, Urban Logistics Realty, in the lease negotiations. Blake Kendrick and Seth Koschak, also with Stream Realty Partners, represented the tenant. At full completion, which is slated for the fourth quarter, Urban District 30 will total approximately 977,000 square feet across five buildings.
RARITAN, N.J. — Burlington has opened a new store at Somerville Circle Shopping Center, a 150,000-square-foot property located at the intersection of Routes 202/206 and Route 28 in Raritan, about 45 miles southeast of New York City. Burlington has backfilled a space formerly occupied by Toys ‘R’ Us/Babies ‘R’ Us. Other tenants at the center include Staples, Petco, Jersey Mike’s, Burger King and Five Below. Levin Management Corp. manages the property. The square footage of the store was not disclosed.
DELRAN, N.J. — Monster Pets, a retailer that serves the Philadelphia area, has signed a 57,930-square-foot industrial lease in the Southern New Jersey city of Delran. The property, which is now fully leased, is located near U.S. Route 130 and Swedes Run Industrial Park. Scott Mertz of NAI Mertz represented the landlord, a partnership between Endurance Real Estate Group and PCCP, in the lease negotiations. The representative of the tenant was not disclosed.
MINNEAPOLIS — Deluxe Corp. has leased 71,000 square feet of office space at 801 Marquette Ave. and 23,000 square feet at 121 S. Eighth St. in Minneapolis. Franklin Street Properties Corp. owns both office buildings, which now boast occupancy rates of approximately 92 percent. Deluxe, a financial tech firm, also leased 172,000 square feet of office space in Atlanta this month.