Two days, two big deals.
Craig Menin’s Menin Development just paid $33 million for a Delray Beach shopping center, marking his firm’s second major acquisition in Palm Beach County just this week.
The deal covers New Century Commons, a retail development measuring 89,163 square feet at 500 West Linton Boulevard in southeast Delray. It’s anchored by PetSmart and Sports Authority, though the outdoor retailer’s lease is one of 18 in South Florida headed to auction this month as part of the company’s bankruptcy.
Craig Menin
Sports Authority occupies 45,173 square feet at the building at a base rent of $19.50 per foot annually, though all of the retailers’ stores in the country will be shuttered this year.
Marcus & Millichap’s Douglas Mandel, who represented the seller, said in a statement that Sports Authority going under nearly threw a wrench in the sale. The company announced its bankruptcy while negotiations were underway, he said, but Menin was convinced by other potential tenants inquiring about the soon-to-be vacant space.
Menin’s purchase price breaks down to about $370 per square foot.
First built in 1990, the shopping center has traded only a handful of times in the past 13 years. Its most recent owner, Yaniv Sananes, acquired the property for an $26.5 million in 2014 from a company led by David Biggs, Robert Mathias and the late Frank Dimisa of Fort Lauderdale. They had paid $13 million for the property in 2006, according to county records, and ran into trouble from Iberiabank when the lender sought to foreclose on a $23 million mortgage, though the trio seems to have resolved the action before selling.
During Biggs, Mathias and Dimisa’s eight years of ownership, the complex expanded with two new buildings: a 3,339-square-foot PNC Bank branch and a multi-tenant retail building measuring 7,320 square feet, which is occupied by a Chipotle, AT&T store and a yogurt shop.
For this most recent trade, Menin financed its purchase with a $26.4 million loan from Goldman Sachs Bank, according to records. The Delray Beach-based company focuses on buying institutional-level retail buildings in affluent communities, according to its website.
Mickey Taillard of Taillard Capital also brokered the deal on behalf of the seller, and said Sananes is looking to use the proceeds from his sale in a 1031 exchange for another investment property in South Florida’s “core markets.” A 1031 exchange is part of the U.S. tax code that allows the seller of a property to reinvest his earnings into another piece of real estate, all while deferring taxes on capital gains.
On Monday, Menin also closed its $25.6 million purchase of Esplanade in the Grove, another Delray Beach retail building that last sold for a mere $2.55 million 15 years ago.