CTO Realty Buys Richmond Mixed-Use Retail Center for $94M

October 18, 2022

Retail Deals Mid-Atlantic News More Office Richmond

West Broad Village traded in a 1031 exchange.

West Broad Village. Image courtesy of Google Street View.

West Broad Village. Image via Google Street View

CTO Realty Growth has paid $93.9 million for West Broad Village, a 392,000-square-foot, grocery-anchored property located at 2250 Old Brick Road in Glen Allen, Va. The purchase was completed through a 1031 like-kind exchange, funded in part through $35 million in restricted cash from previous dispositions. The seller was ShopCore Properties, according to CommercialEdge information, which had acquired the complex in 2012 for $68.8 million.

Built in phases between 2007 and 2014, West Broad Village comprises a mix of 315,600 square feet of retail and 76,500 square feet of office space. The asset was 83 percent leased at the time of sale, having Whole Foods and REI as anchor tenants of the retail component. Truist, HomeGoods and Calico Corners are also on the roster, according to the property’s website.

West Broad Village is some 13 miles from downtown Richmond, adjacent to Interstate 64, with nearly 175,000 people living within a 5-mile radius. The 32.6-acre property is alongside West Broad Street in the area’s highest performing commercial district.

Richmond’s slow retail revival

The changing hands of West Broad Village took place as the nation’s retail sector both recovers from and adapts to an ever-changing environment and shopping habits. Due to retail’s struggles of the past two years, many have taken to reductions and repurposing of space, real-time analytics and cost-cutting measures.

For its part, Richmond’s market performed strongly in the first half of 2022, with 133,457 square feet of positive net absorption and a vacancy rate of 4.6 percent, according a Colliers report. Such strength is expected to continue, albeit in a slightly diminished state. The metro suffers from persistently stagnant leasing activity, in part due to a lack of available space for all retail types to meet demand, in addition to long-term economic concerns, which are likely to reduce those numbers for the remainder of the year.