Allstate Investments cashed out of a West Palm Beach retail and office center it acquired nearly 30 years ago.
The West Palm Beach-based company managed by Richard Grondin sold the two-story Palm Gate Plaza at 3899 North Haverhill Road for $12.4 million, according to records. The buyer is an affiliate of Atlanta-based investment management firm Jordan Capital AM, headed by Vad Yazvinski.
Allstate acquired the 57,070-square-foot building for $1.3 million in 1994, records show. The nearly 5-acre Palm Gate Plaza was completed in 1986 and renovated in 1998. The center is anchored by a Dollar General store, features 20 office suites on the second floor and is 100 percent occupied, according to a listing. It is across the street from a Publix-anchored shopping center and near the Century Village retirement community.
The Palm Gate Plaza trade is the latest in a string of high-profile deals for outdoor shopping centers in South Florida, as local buyers compete with out-of-town investors seeking retail properties with stable tenant rosters that weathered the pandemic.
Richard Grondin, also a principal with NNN Investment Advisors, which marketed the property, said Palm Gate Plaza was under contract within days of the listing going up in August. Lorrie Garbarz of the same firm represented the buyer and the seller
“We had multiple offers, including six full price offers,” Grondin said. “The full price offers were all from out of state. We got a lot of interest from investors from New York, New Jersey and California. There’s pretty strong demand for these types of properties.”
Class B and Class C retail centers held up extremely well during the pandemic, Grondin said. “[Allstate] owns a lot of national single-tenant properties. All of them tried to renegotiate with us during the pandemic. In all of our centers, the small mom-and-pop tenants have held up incredibly well.”
Earlier this month, Boston-based JB Capital Management led a joint venture acquisition of Fresh Market Village in Jupiter. The partnership paid $25.5 million for the 55,046-square-foot retail center at 311 East Indiantown Road. Jessica Giguere, a JB Capital co-founder, told The Real Deal the firm went from searching for industrial sites to outdoor retail centers because “there is a little more opportunity” in that submarket.
Other recent deals include Denver-based Crow Holdings’ $32.5 million acquisition of the Turtle Crossing shopping plaza in Coral Springs, and Horizon Properties of Miami’s $33 million purchase of El Mercado Plaza in Hialeah.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the seller and incorrectly stated the occupancy of West Gate Plaza.