SALEM, N.H. — Tuscan Brands has welcomed new tenants to Tuscan Village, its 170-acre flagship shopping, dining and entertainment destination located north of Boston in Salem, New Hampshire. Nike (15,000 square feet) and Chick-fil-A (5,000 square feet) both recently opened, and Mass General Brigham will open a primary and specialty care medical facility later this summer. The Container Store will launch a 15,000-square-foot store this winter. Other tenants that have committed to Tuscan Village include T-Mobile, Xfinity, Crumbl Cookies, Banfield Pet Hospital, LensCrafters and Bennett’s Sandwich Shop.
CHICAGO — Blue Bottle Coffee has signed a long-term lease to open a 1,188-square-foot retail space at The Shops at Tribune Tower in Chicago. Founded in 2002, Blue Bottle Coffee is a coffee roaster and retailer with more than 60 cafes globally. The Shops at Tribune Tower location will be Blue Bottle’s second in the Chicago area. The shop is expected to open in early 2023. Blue Bottle’s location is directly adjacent to the newly opened Foxtrot Market and the upcoming Museum of Ice Cream, which is scheduled to open July 16. The Shops at Tribune Tower consists of 50,000 square feet of retail space that anchors the ground floor of the 36-story, 740,000-square-foot Tribune Tower, which has been transformed into 162 luxury condominiums. CIM Group owns the property.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — SRS Real Estate Partners has brokered the sale of two urban retail properties in Washington, D.C., totaling $9.2 million. The properties include 2321 18th St. NW in the city’s Adams Morgan submarket and 1519 Wisconsin Ave. in the Georgetown district. Built in 1910 and renovated in 2020, the Adams Morgan property houses a single tenant (Ironworks Inc.) that operates three Asian fusion restaurants — Death Punch Bar, Shabu Plus and Shibuya — and has 10 years remaining on its lease. An unnamed private investor purchased the 4,500-square-foot property from a locally based developer for $3.5 million. Andrew Fallon and Rick Fernandez of SRS represented the seller in the transaction. The Georgetown property houses three retailers (a salon, nail parlor and mobile device repair shop) that are on triple-net leases. A local investor purchased the asset for $5.7 million in a 1031 exchange. Fallon and Fernandez represented the seller, a locally based, privately held investor and developer.
MAPLEWOOD, MINN. — NAI Legacy has arranged the sale of a Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers ground lease in Maplewood near Minneapolis for $3.4 million. The ground lease for the newly constructed, single-tenant property is for 15 years. The building is located at 3065 White Bear Ave. Michael Houge of NAI Legacy represented the undisclosed seller, while Ken Tsukahara of Colliers represented the California-based buyer. Raising Cane’s operates more than 600 restaurants across the U.S.
BOSTON — New York City-based real estate giant Tishman Speyer has sold Pier 4 Retail, a 16,134-square-foot retail condo in Boston’s Seaport District for $12 million. Built in 2019, the property was fully leased to two restaurant concepts at the time of sale. Chris Angelone, Nat Heald, Kellie Coveney and Zach Nitsche of JLL represented Tishman Speyer in the transaction. The buyer was not disclosed.
ENGLEWOOD, OHIO — Huey Magoo’s has opened its first restaurant in the state of Ohio in Englewood, a northern suburb of Dayton. The 2,500-square-foot building, located at 9196 N. Main St., is the 27th restaurant nationwide for the chicken tenders brand. The Englewood restaurant will offer dine-in, take out, curbside pickup and delivery through third-party services Uber Eats and DoorDash. Huey Magoo’s franchisees Tim and Ronda Hobart will operate the restaurant.
BROOKLYN PARK, MINN. — Taco Bell has opened its new and innovative drive-thru prototype in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park. Coined Taco Bell Defy, the two-story restaurant features four drive-thru lanes. A proprietary vertical lift transports food items straight from the kitchen to guests. The drive-thru experience at Taco Bell Defy is designed to be two minutes or less. The restaurant was built in partnership with longtime franchisee Border Foods. Minneapolis-based Vertical Works Inc. handled the design of the concept. The project was first announced last year.
ORLANDO, FLA. — FrostPoint Capital has purchased Bridgewater Commons, a shopping center in Orlando, from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based HS Capital for $9.9 million. Winn-Dixie anchors the 62,460-square-foot retail center, which is shadow-anchored by a CVS/pharmacy outparcel that was not part of the transaction. Other tenants include Subway, Avalon Dance Studio, Two Guys Pizzeria, Amigos Barbershop, New Shang Hai Restaurant, Winn-Dixie Liquors and Greenberg Dental. Kirk Olson and Drew Kristol of Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap, represented the seller and procured the West Palm Beach, Fla.-based buyer in the deal.
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Which Way is the Retail Pendulum Swinging?
Although the pandemic wreaked havoc on the retail sector in general, the culling of weak concepts has left space for strong retailers to flourish. The retail industry is seeing an explosion in experiential retail, medical/dental space is ubiquitous and non-traditional tenants are jumping at opportunities to secure prime locations. As a result, shopping centers have proven very resilient, says George Macoubray, vice president of retail brokerage with NAI Elliott in Portland, Oregon. “Today’s centers continue to evolve and to address what consumers need in terms of a place for people to congregate and participate in the activities that are important to them.” The entertainment sector was hit hard by the pandemic, he notes. “But now those operators seem to be out looking for locations, and they’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. People want to gather. They want to be entertained. They want to go out and do activities. Those kinds of experiences are happening more and more often in shopping centers — and you can’t buy those activities on Amazon.” Exciting new in-person experiences are helping to elevate shopping centers. “There’s an influx of experiential retail. From golf simulator experiences to ping-pong places to axe-throwing activities, …
ITHACA, N.Y. — California-based brokerage firm Hanley Investment Group has arranged the $2.4 million sale of a 7,500-square-foot restaurant building in the upstate New York community of Ithaca that is fully leased to Texas Roadhouse. The property was built on 1.4 acres in 2015. Jeff Lefko and Bill Asher of Hanley Investment Group, along with Parasell Inc., represented the California-based buyer in the transaction. Dalton Barnes of Alpha Real Estate Advisors represented the Chicago-based seller.