Merlone Geier sells Inland Empire shopping center for $62M

A San Francisco investor has sold a 16-building shopping center in the Inland Empire for $62 million.

Merlone Geier Partners divested the Vernola Marketplace at 6237 Pats Ranch Road in Jurupa Valley, the Commercial Observer reported, citing data from Vizzda.

The buyers of the 201,300-square-foot retail center were Christopher Lupo and Victor Zonni of Parker House Furniture. The price was $308 per square foot.

The regional center, built in 2007 on nearly 28 acres, is near the 15 Freeway and Limonite Avenue. Tenants include BevMo, Kirkland’s home goods, PetCo, fast-food restaurants and Lowe’s Home Improvement, according to the Observer.

The Inland Empire has a 6.8 percent commercial vacancy rate, while average rent dipped to $19.14 per square foot in the third quarter, according to Kidder Matthews. The average sales price was $230 per square foot.

Merlone Geier is among the more active shopping center investment firms in Southern California.

Over the summer, it sold two retail centers in the Antelope Valley city of Palmdale. They included the sale of a 250,000-square-foot shopping center for $57 million, or $230 per square foot, and a 214,000-square-foot retail center for $57.3 million, or $270 per square foot.

In March, Merlone Geier won approval from the city of Laguna Hills in Orange County to redevelop a zombie mall into a Village at Laguna Hills, with 1,500 homes, 465,000 square feet of offices, 250,000 square feet of shops, restaurants, a cinema and a 150-room boutique hotel.

This fall the company sold a 375,500-square-foot community shopping center in Lancaster in north Angeles County for $45.3 million, according to the Observer. In May 2021, it bought a grocery-anchored shopping center in Riverside in the Inland Empire for $39 million.  

— Dana Bartholomew

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