Mixed-Use Miami Shopping Center Sells for $95.3M

January 7, 2011
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

London Square, a nearly 360,000-square-foot property featuring a shopping center and a small office building in Kendall, Fla., has just come under new ownership. Woolbright Development Inc. sold the asset for approximately $95.3 million to institutional investment advisor RREEF, which purchased the Miami-area property for an offshore client.

Developed by Woolbright in 2008, London Square encompasses a 299,100 square-foot shopping center featuring Ross Dress for Less, TJ Maxx and HomeGoods in anchor positions, and a 60,700 square-foot, three-story office building with a tenant roster that includes Miami Children’s Hospital. A 150,500 square-foot freestanding building occupied by a Costco store was not part of the deal, which was brokered on behalf of the seller by commercial real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis Inc.

CBRE senior vice president Casey Rosen said that the transaction was the largest deal involving an open-air shopping center in Florida since 2008. He asserted that the sale confirms that institutional capital has regained enough confidence in the market to make a major investment in Florida retail.

The shopping center is presently 99 percent occupied, a score that is well above the current retail market statistics in Miami, where the average vacancy rate is 10.7 percent, according to a third quarter report by Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services. The market, with a year-over-year vacancy rate decrease of 3.7 percent, is in recovery mode.