Nassimi Realty notched a nice pickup off the Chicago retail clearance rack, in a deal with a familiar seller.
The New York-based firm bought the 100,000-square-foot Joffco Square shopping center in the South Loop, which is anchored by Best Buy on the southeast corner of West Roosevelt Road and South Jefferson Street, for $9.25 million. That’s a significant discount from the $24 million the property fetched back in 2011, according to a spokesperson for the buyer.
Nassimi’s bargain helped the New York-based seller DRA Advisors further its plan to sell off pieces of a $540 million Midwest retail empire concentrated in Chicago, an effort that has been in the works for more than a year. DRA amassed the retail portfolio with its 2015 acquisition of the Inland Real Estate Corporation REIT, based in suburban Chicago, for $2.3 billion. Inland had either bought up or developed the properties within the portfolio.
DRA has already sold off dozens of properties within the Inland portfolio that it took over nearly a decade ago, but few have come at as heavy a loss as the Joffco property.
The seller’s predecessor, Inland, bought the Joffco Square property in 2011 out of bankruptcy for nearly $24 million. It was valued at $27 million when DRA took it over, Nassimi said. DRA representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday.
It’s the third Chicagoland purchase Nassimi has made from Northbrook-based Pine Tree, which manages Chicago-area retail properties on behalf of DRA, as Nassimi looks to bulk up in the Midwest after previously focusing on retail in the Northeast, the buyer said. In the northern Chicago suburbs, Nassimi also bought the Four Flaggs shopping center in Niles from DRA last year for nearly $24 million, and it bought the Lake Plaza shopping center in Waukegan earlier this year, records show.
The three-story Joffco property — which also includes a parking garage that can fit more than 300 cars — is being marketed for lease by CBRE’s Joe Parrott and Sean McCourt. Their marketing brochure shows a second-floor space of more than 27,000 square feet is available now, and there’s 16,000 square feet next door on the same floor — now occupied by Joann Fabrics — that is expected to be vacated starting in January. But a spokesperson for Nassimi indicated Joann is likely to remain in the space and has no plans to move out, with only the larger space available for lease.
The discount may have been offered to Nassimi because of the leasing and construction costs it will require from the landlord to refill the property.
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