KINGMAN, ARIZ., AND SILVER CITY, N.M. — Benson DBS has acquired two retail properties for a total of $3.3 million. Dave Hammack of Cushman & Wakefield | PICOR represented the buyer in both transactions. Benson DBS company acquired a new Dollar General-occupied building located at 7265 E. Concho Drive in Kingman. SimonCRE Saltair II sold the asset for $1.7 million. Additionally, the company purchased a new Dollar General-occupied property at 1330 E. 32nd St. in Silver City from Silver City (E32) DNMP LLC for $1.6 million.
LAKELAND, FLA. — Publix’s sales have increased 21.8 percent year-over-year, the company announced during its second-quarter earnings report. As an essential retailer, the Lakeland-based grocer has remained open through the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared a national emergency March 13. For its second quarter, which spanned the three months ending June 27, Publix’s sales reached $11.4 billion, an increase from $9.3 billion the same time a year ago. The company estimates its sales in the second quarter increased approximately $1.5 billion, or 16.1 percent, due to the pandemic.
RICHMOND, VA. — JLL has negotiated the $35.2 million sale of five retail buildings leased to Wawa in metro Richmond. The five properties are located at 6001 Iron Bridge Road in Richmond; 8800 Brook Road in Glen Allen; 3840 N. Bailey Bridge Road in Midlothian; and 600 E. Hundred Road and 11021 Iron Bridge Road in Chester. Each property was built between 2000 and 2001, and Wawa recently executed 20-year lease extensions at each property. Marc Mandel, Steve Schrenk, Jordan Lex and Chris Hew of JLL represented the seller, a joint venture between Provco, Goodman Properties and Pineville Properties. Patrick Luther of SRS Real Estate Partners and Phil Sambazis of Marcus & Millichap represented the undisclosed buyer, which was completing a 1031 exchange.
CHICAGO — Englewood Construction has completed a new Windy City Cannabis-branded dispensary at 923 W. Weed St. in Chicago. The facility is the second recreational dispensary within Chicago’s city limits since Illinois legalized recreational marijuana on Jan. 1. Des Plaines, Ill.-based Camburas & Theodore Ltd. served as architect. Englewood has started work on a second Windy City Cannabis location at 1413 W. North Ave. in Melrose Park, a western suburb of Chicago. The dispensary is slated to open in September. Bill Di Santo, president of Lemont, Ill.-based Englewood, says that that the construction of cannabis projects is currently a bright spot for the firm given “a strong pipeline of work.”
TROY, MICH. — Beyond Juicery + Eatery has signed a 1,104-square-foot lease at Troy Marketplace. The juicer will occupy space that formerly housed Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt. The retail center is located at the intersection of Big Beaver and Rochester roads in Troy, about 20 miles north of Detroit. Tjader Gerdom, Michael Murphy and Larry Siedell of Gerdom Realty & Investment represented the landlord, RPT Realty, in the lease negotiations. William Gershenson of Gershenson Group represented Beyond Juicery + Eatery.
PLANO, TEXAS — At Home, a home décor and furnishings retailer, posted net sales of $515 million in its fiscal second quarter, which ended on July 25, and is reportedly looking to expand its footprint. That figure represents a 42 percent year-over-year increase in comparable store sales. At Home CEO Lee Bird told CNBC on Friday that the company has been expanding its store count by about 20 percent per year over the last seven years, and that it could grow from its current 219 stores to as many as 600. Bird cited the Plano-based retailer’s emergence as an essential retailer and a one-stop shop for a broad range of home goods, as well as the growth of its omnichannel sales platform and the ability to social distance inside its large-format stores, as key drivers of its growth.
SECAUCUS, N.J. — Burlington has open a 47,000-square-foot store at a space formerly occupied by Sports Authority at Mill Creek at Harmon Meadow in Secaucus, located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. New Jersey-based Levin Management Corp. represented the landlord in the lease negotiations. The representative of the tenant was not disclosed.
MERRICK, N.Y. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the $2.1 million sale of a 2,431-square-foot retail asset net leased to Wendy’s in the Long Island city of Merrick. Michael Tuccillo and Matthew Klang of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller and procured the buyer, both of which were private investors that requested anonymity, in the transaction. Wendy’s has 14 years remaining on its lease.
FREDERICKSBURG, VA. — SRS Real Estate Partners has arranged the $1.8 million sale of a property triple-net leased to Chick-fil-A in Fredericksburg. Chick-fil-A has occupied the 3,781-square-foot property for 20 years and recently extended its corporate-guaranteed lease for another five years. The asset is situated at 4220 Plank Road, five miles west of downtown Fredericksburg. Andrew Fallon and Rick Fernandez of SRS represented the undisclosed seller in the transaction. The buyer was also not disclosed.
By Matthew M. May, President, May Realty Advisors A bird’s-eye look at the Los Angeles metro prior to the coronavirus outbreak reveals that the area was already beginning to soften as it worked its way through more than 1.26 million square feet of new retail space that was delivered to neighborhood and community shopping centers over the past five years. According to REIS, about 35 percent of that, or 443,000 square feet, came online in 2018. Vacancy rates increased every year for the past five years, while averaging about 7.3 percent for the metro area in 2019. Despite the increasing vacancy, we also had quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year growth in asking rents, primarily led by increases in the higher-end neighborhoods. At the street level, quarterly asking rents for neighborhood and community centers averaged about $33.03 for 2019, while increasing about $0.5 per square foot from 2018 to 2019. However, pre-leasing has been weakening over the past few quarters. Discussions in development circles were indicating fewer mixed-use projects in the planning stages with more builders favoring dedicated multifamily builds. Nevertheless, new retail inventory was in the pipeline for this year, with optimism surrounding the evolving retail landscape. All of this was, of …