Kimco Buys $132M Portland Shopping Center

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Ross Cooper, president & CIO, Kimco Realty

Kimco Realty Corp. continues to add to its portfolio with the acquisition of Jantzen Beach Center, one of the largest retail centers in the State of Oregon. The REIT purchased the 746,000-square-foot property from Jantzen Dynamic Corp., according to City of Portland records, in a $131.8 million transaction.

As part of its 2020 Vision strategy, Kimco is methodically upgrading the quality of its portfolio through acquisitions funded with recycled capital from select dispositions. “The demand for high-quality assets with significant upside is extremely competitive,” Ross Cooper, president & CIO with Kimco Realty Corp., told Commercial Property Executive. “There is a substantial amount of capital aggressively chasing these rare opportunities. We continue to very selectively evaluate assets and only stretch if the upside, location, and demographics are extraordinarily compelling.”

Originally developed in 1972 and most recently renovated in 2011, the 67-acre open-air shopping center has a 96 percent occupancy level; a long list of top national retailers; a location in an in-demand market with significant barriers to entry; and potential for the outparcel development of two 6,000-square-foot pad buildings.

With the acquisition of Jantzen Beach, Kimco’s footprint in the Greater Portland area now exceeds 2 million square feet. 

A GOOD TIME TO EXPAND IN PORTLAND

“The Portland retail market stayed at the forefront of national trends during the second quarter of 2017,” according to a report by commercial real estate services firm Kidder Mathews. “Fitness centers, food halls, breweries, and other non-traditional establishments supplanted brick-and-mortar stores to keep vacancies low in the area’s retail corridors and shopping centers.”

The market experienced positive absorption totaling nearly 235,000 square feet in the face of 191,000 square feet of new retail deliveries, per the report. Year-over-year average rents increased 6.2 percent, and the vacancy rate held steady at an enviable 4.1 percent.