Red Mountain goes shopping for retail in Inland Empire

Santa Ana-based firm buys 168K sf center anchored by Albertsons, $252 psf price among highest in the region

Red Mountain Retail Group's Michael H. Mugel with 11901-12089 Central Ave (Red Mountain, Newmark, iStock)
Red Mountain Retail Group's Michael H. Mugel with 11901-12089 Central Ave (Red Mountain, Newmark, iStock)

An Orange County investor has paid $42.3 million for a 168,000-square-foot shopping center in Chino.

Red Mountain Retail Group, based in Santa Ana, bought the retail center at 11901-12089 Central Ave. in the Inland Empire city,, the Commercial Observer reported. The sale price comes to $252 per square foot.

The seller was Kimco Realty, a real estate investment trust based in Long Island, New York, that claims to be the largest publicly traded owner-operator of grocery anchored shopping centers in North America.

Newmark announced the deal, with ​​Pete Bethea, Rob Ippolito and Glenn Rudy representing the seller.
“Red Mountain Group continues to be aggressive in its pursuit to acquire quality retail in Southern California and beyond,” Rudy said in a statement.

The shopping center just north of the 60 Freeway is anchored by Albertsons and includes PetSmart, Rite Aid, Dollar Tree, Harbor Freight Tools, America’s Tires, Kaiser Permanente and Sherwin Williams. It was 92-percent occupied at the time of sale.

Red Mountain, founded in 1991 with a focus on redeveloping distressed strip malls, has a commercial real estate portfolio of 92 properties, with more than 4.7 million square feet across 18 states, according to its website.

In September, it sold an Amazon Fresh grocery store complex on L.A.’s Westside for $35 million. It also sold a neighboring building leased to Chick-fil-A for $13.7 million.

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Last year, Kimco made a national splash when it bought Weingarten Realty Investors, owner of 159 grocery-anchored retail centers across the West Coast and Sun Belt, for $3.87 billion in cash and stock.

It commanded top dollar within the Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino on its $252-per-square-foot sale in Chino.

In March, JH Real Estate Partners bought a 310,000-square-foot shopping center in Fontana for $70.8 million – the highest overall price paid for a retail property in the Inland Empire since 2018. The sale came out to $228 per square foot, well ahead of other fully leased retail properties anchored by other types of stores.

In the Inland Empire city of Montclair, a 136,000-square-foot shopping center that’s fully leased to Ross Stores was on the market for $25 million — about $184 per square foot.

[Commercial Observer] – Dana Bartholomew

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