Sterling Organization Sells Shopping Center for $70M

The investor previously paid a little over $38 million for the asset.

Exterior shot of Sam's Club, one of the tenants at Windsor Square in Matthews, N.C.
Sam’s Club is one of the tenants at Windsor Square. Image courtesy of Sterling Organization

Sterling Organization has sold regional shopping center Windsor Square for $70.1 million to Hackney Real Estate Partners. The 658,000-square-foot asset in suburban Charlotte, N.C., previously traded for $38.4 million.

The seven-building property occupies nearly 64 acres at 1814 Windsor Square Drive, off U.S. Route 74 in Matthews, N.C. Downtown Charlotte is about 9 miles away, and closer at hand, the shopping center is about 1.5 miles north of Interstate 485.


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At the time of the sale, Windsor Square was 97 percent leased. Tenants include Sam’s Club, Kohl’s, Ross Dress for Less, PetSmart, Office Depot, Beall’s and At Home. More than 58,000 people live within a 3-mile radius of the property, with an average household income of about $114,000.

Sterling now owns about 13 million square feet among 73 properties. In September, the company acquired a 994,000-square-foot portfolio of open-air shopping centers in the Atlanta, San Antonio and Washington, D.C., metros for $180.5 million.

In June, the firm closed its Sterling Value Add Partners IV LP. The fund obtained total capital commitments of $600 million, exceeding the $500 million target, and pursues the acquisition of value-add grocery-anchored shopping centers, neighborhood centers and power centers.

Charlotte retail tight

The Charlotte retail market is a tight one, coming in at 3.1 percent vacancy at the beginning of the fourth quarter, according to a Marcus & Millichap report. Some 820,000 square feet is currently under construction.

Companies leased nearly 2 million square feet of Charlotte retail space in 2023, the report shows, with less than a 1 million square feet completed that year. Leasing is down so far in 2024, to less than 1 million square feet. However, asking rents edged up by more than 4 percent this year to about $20 per square foot.