AURORA, COLO. — Marcus & Millichap has arranged the sale of a restaurant property located at 25455 E. Smoky Hill Road in Aurora, a suburb east of Denver. A developer sold the asset to a local all-cash investor in a 1031 exchange for $2.6 million. Starbucks Coffee occupies the 2,155-square-foot property on a net-lease basis. James Rassenfoss and Drew Isaac of Marcus & Millichap’s Denver office represented the seller, while Kyle Malnati at Kentwood Commercial represented the buyer in the deal.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Entertainment concept Level99 has opened a new, 40,000-square-foot venue at Providence Place, a shopping mall located just northwest of the capital city’s downtown area. Comprising 43 rooms, the facility offers interactive challenges as well as a restaurant, Night Shift Brewing Kitchen & Tap. Investment fund Act III Holdings, led by Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich, backs Level99. Brookfield Properties owns Providence Place.
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Banksia is opening a 5,300-square-foot restaurant at 1111 Main, the largest office building in Kansas City, according to owner Copaken Brooks. The Australian-inspired café and bistro is relocating from its existing downtown location at 105 W. 9th St. The new restaurant is slated to open this spring. Copaken Brooks is performing the owner’s representative services for Banksia’s build-out. Banksia will offer patio seating, a full bar, coffee, breakfast, lunch and dinner service as well as private event spaces. Tiffany Ruzicka of AREA Real Estate Advisors represented the tenant, while Erin Johnston of Copaken Brooks represented ownership.
BOSTON — J. Safra Real Estate, an affiliate of international banking and investment firm Safra Group, has agreed to acquire the historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace in downtown Boston. Faneuil Hall traces its origins to 1742, when the site served as a meeting ground and a center of commerce for Boston residents and visitors. Today, the development is home to more than 80 individual businesses. The seller was Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. Details of the transaction, such as the price and expected closing date, were not disclosed.
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Professional Bull Riders (PBR) and Live! Hospitality & Entertainment have unveiled plans to open a PBR Cowboy Bar + Smokehouse at Easton Town Center in Columbus. Set to open early this year, the bar marks the 15th location for the brand nationwide and the first in Ohio. The Easton Town Center location will total 8,400 square feet with a media wall for viewing all major sporting events, multiple bars, private VIP booths, an outdoor patio, stage and mechanical bull. Easton Town Center, a shopping destination with more than 250 stores, restaurants and entertainment venues, is located within the larger Easton mixed-use development. Steiner + Associates manages and leases Easton Town Center.
GRIMES, IOWA — Upland Real Estate Group has brokered the $1.8 million sale of an Arby’s-occupied property in Grimes, a northwest suburb of Des Moines. Arby’s has a 20-year triple net lease with 5 percent rent increases every five years. The tenant on the lease, DRM Inc., is one of the largest Arby’s franchisees and operates 109 Arby’s restaurants in seven Midwest states. Deborah Vanelli, Keith Sturm and Amanda Leathers of Upland represented the undisclosed seller.
PHILADELPHIA — Dave’s Hot Chicken will open three restaurants at properties owned by Federal Realty Investment Trust in the Philadelphia metro area. Scheduled to open this month, the first store will span 2,995 square feet at Northeast Shopping Center in Philadelphia. Dave’s will also open restaurants at Ellisburg Shopping Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Willow Grove Shopping Center in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, in the spring and fall of this year. Those stores will span 3,086 and 2,825 square feet, respectively.
MIAMI — SG Holdings has completed leasing at Sawyer’s Walk, a 3.4-acre mixed-use development underway in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood. The project, which will feature retail space, offices and affordable housing for seniors, is set to open this summer. SG Holdings is a partnership comprising Swerdlow Group, SJM Partners and Alben Duffie. The development team broke ground on Sawyer’s Walk in summer 2021. The development costs were not disclosed, but the Miami Herald reported the price tag hovers around $350 million. “The anticipated delivery of our mixed-use development will serve as an economic catalyst for Overtown, with the creation of over 1,000 quality jobs, the opening of a new full-service supermarket and mix of national retail stores that will serve the immediate community and surrounding neighborhoods,” says Michael Swerdlow, managing partner of Swerdlow Group. Sawyer’s Walk will feature 175,000 square feet of retail space. Committed tenants include Target (50,000 square feet), Aldi (25,000 square feet), Ross Dress for Less, Five Below, Tropical Smoothie Café and Burlington. MSC Group, a global cargo ship line and the world’s third-largest cruise line, purchased the property’s 130,000 square feet of office space with plans to combine its South Florida cruise and cargo operations under one roof. …
With high operating costs eroding profitability at many urban stores, major retailers are concentrating development and store renovations in suburban locations with layouts geared to the latest consumer preferences. As more retailers follow suit, early adopters provide object lessons in best practices to better serve an evolving customer base and reveal pitfalls to avoid along the way. “Retailers are more sensitive to the pressures of high costs and loss prevention in urban markets, and as a result, they are backing off in those areas,” says Cornelius Brown, a principal and regional manager in the Philadelphia office of Bohler. “Retailers looking to grow, in our experience, are shifting to the suburbs and using retail program methods to cut costs.” Bohler is a land development design and consulting firm that helps developers move their projects forward quickly. Recently, those clients have been keen to avoid risk in both site selection and design features, Brown says. Streamlining Retail Development Retail programs allow developers to use pre-existing retail layout prototypes to determine optimal site arrangements. This approach uses checklists to assign one of several pre-made layouts to a development based on factors such as road location, grading and elevation, parking needs, drive-through layout, loading …
LOS ANGELES — Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors has arranged the sale of a single-tenant restaurant property with a drive-thru at 1789 W. Jefferson Blvd. in Los Angeles. A private investor based in Los Angeles sold the asset to a Southern California-based private investor for $3.2 million. Starbucks Coffee occupies the 1,486-square-foot building, which was built in 2017. Jeff Lefko and Bill Asher of Hanley Investment Group represented the seller, while Ryan Sharpe of Kidder Mathews represented the buyer in the deal.
