Newport Beach-based mall landlord TRC Retail has closed a $66 million acquisition in upscale La Cañada Flintridge, The Real Deal has learned.
TRC bought the La Cañada Town Center, a 115,000-square-foot mall just off the 210 Freeway near the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Angeles Crest Scenic Byway. The firm closed on the purchase on March 12, according to a deed filed in Los Angeles County’s Registrar’s Office.
TRC Retail’s purchase price works out to about $574 per square foot.
The seller is IDS Real Estate Group. The firm and an unidentified public pension fund bought the mall, at 990 Town Center Drive and 965-985 Foothill Boulevard, for $40.4 million in 2011, according to the firm’s website and data from PropertyShark.
Tenants at the property include Target, HomeGoods, Taylor’s Steakhouse and Blaze Fast Fire Pizza.
IDS is an office landlord that’s active in Culver City. It is currently partnering with Hackman Capital to build a 244,000-square-foot office complex in the Hayden Tract area.
TRC owns six shopping centers in Los Angeles, according to its website. Its portfolio includes Atlantic Square in Monterey Park, Canyon Plaza in Sun Valley and Spring Street Pavilion in Long Beach. The company also operates in San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Texas and Washington, D.C.
The La Cañada Town Center deal stands as an anomaly in a retail market that’s slow-walking towards normalcy. According to NAI Capital’s fourth-quarter market report, asset sales volume for L.A. County retail properties dropped by 45 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year. That’s in spite of a 3.6 percent increase for the last quarter of the year.
Conditions were similarly bleak on the leasing front. In 2023, retail leasing activity in L.A. County dropped by nearly 9 percent compared to the previous year.
TRC Retail did not respond to a request for comment.