Village del Amo Retail Center Sells to Unnamed Buyer

A shopping center in Torrance has sold in the largest retail sale of last year in the South Bay market.

DJM Capital Group sold Village del Amo at 21201-21327 Hawthorne Boulevard to an undisclosed buyer for $108.5 million, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. The 166,365-square-foot property is anchored by Korean grocer Hannam Chain with BevMo, Benihana and U.S. Bank as other tenants. NAI Capital Commercial represented the buyer.

Village del Amo was 92.3 percent leased at the time of sale, according to the Business Journal. The retail center saw 3.5 million visitors over the past year.

Encino-based NAI has “seen a clear resurgence of interest from institutional capital targeting necessity-based retail,” David Shaby III, vice president of investment services in NAI’s South Bay office, said of the purchase, per the Business Journal. NAI will stay on in an advisory capacity “as the focus turns to attracting new high-quality credit tenants to address the remaining vacancies at the property,” said Stefan Neumann, also a vice president of the investment services group at NAI’s South Bay office.

Farther south in Orange County, several retail properties have traded hands over the past year.

Last February, Blackstone picked up eight retail centers spanning 10.5 million square feet in the OC with the $4 billion acquisition of real estate investment trust Retail Opportunity Investment Corporation. In July, Regency Centers spent $357 million on five retail properties in Rancho Mission Viejo. The Jacksonville, Florida-based firm is the new owner of Bridgepark Plaza at 27702 Crown Valley Parkway; Mercantile West at 25636 Crown Valley Parkway; Mercantile East at 27502 Antonio Parkway; Terrace Shops at 1101 Corporate Drive; and Sendero Marketplace at 30721 Gateway Place. The five properties total nearly 630,000 square feet.

The South Bay submarket is home to nearly 60 million square feet of retail space with a 6.9 percent vacancy rate in the third quarter, according to CBRE data cited by the Business Journal. The average in Orange County is 6.3 percent, though the South Bay bests markets including Downtown Los Angeles at 8.4 percent, the Westside at 9.1 percent and Hollywood and Wilshire at 8.9 percent.

The Village del Amo area could see a new multifamily development rise in the coming years.

Last month, Vista Homes proposed building 449 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments at the site of a former Sports Authority and Sears Outlet store near Village del Amo at 3610 Torrance Boulevard.— Chris Malone Méndez