Broad Street, MedAmerica Strike Merger Deal

Cromwell Field Shopping Center. Image via Google Street View

MedAmerica Properties Inc., which had operated as railroad support services company Banyan Rail Services Inc. before changing its name and shifting its strategy to focus on the acquisition and management of medical office buildings in 2017, is transitioning again. The company just inked a deal to merge with Broad Street Realty LLC and Broad Street Ventures LLC in a transaction that will create Broad Street Realty Inc., a company with a 2 million-square-foot portfolio of shopping centers located in Colorado, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

MedAmerica entered into 19 definitive merger agreements with the Broad Street entities, including one for each of the 17 LLCs behind the 17 shopping centers that will comprise the new company’s asset collection. The retail properties range in size from the 28,000-square-foot Avondale Shops in Washington, D.C., to the 233,500-square-foot Cromwell Field Shopping Center in Glen Burnie, Md. MedAmerica’s plans for MOB acquisitions never came to fruition, so the company is not bringing a portfolio of owned properties to the table.

Following completion of the merger, Broad Street entities will own a total of 92 percent of the shares of common stock of the new public real estate company, leaving MedAmerica shareholders with the remaining 8 percent.

Retail’s bright spot

MedAmerica’s entry-by-merger into retail real estate comes at a time when the national sector is struggling with a growing list of store closures. However, there are still solid areas of the retail real estate market and grocery-anchored properties are among them. Roughly half of the 17 shopping centers that will fall under the merged Broad Street company’s ownership count leading national or regional grocery chains as anchors. MedAmerica expects the merger to reach completion by the end of 2019.