Publix added another South Florida shopping center anchored by one of its stores to the grocer’s growing portfolio, dropping $83 million for a retail site in Palm Beach County.
An affiliate of Lakeland-based Publix, led by CEO Kevin Murphy, acquired Polo Club Shops at 5050 Champion Boulevard, records show. The grocery chain paid $616 per square foot for the 134,800-square-foot retail plaza, and $32 million above the previous sale price a decade ago.
An affiliate of Atlanta-based Jamestown, led by Matt Bronfman, was the buyer. Jamestown paid $50.6 million a decade ago for Polo Club Shops, which was completed in 1988 on 14.2 acres, records show. A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Mark Gilbert and Adam Feinstein represented the seller.
Jamestown completed a major overhaul of the shopping center in 2022, including demolition and reconstruction of the Publix supermarket, which expanded to 48,400 square feet under a 20-year lease.
Polo Club Shops is 97 percent leased with other tenants including Bolay, AT&T, Chase Bank and The UPS Store.
The deal underscores Publix’s strategy in acquiring shopping centers anchored by its supermarkets, giving the company more control over its sites and rental income from neighboring tenants.
The Polo Club Shops purchase comes just two months after Publix paid $71.9 million for Hammocks Town Center in Kendall, an unincorporated neighborhood in southwest Miami-Dade County. The 207,500-square-foot shopping center is anchored by a Publix store. That acquisition did not include five outparcels separately owned by other entities such as Bank of America and McDonald’s.
Including Polo Club Shops, Publix has spent nearly $428 million since May of last year acquiring a standalone store and eight Publix-anchored shopping centers across South Florida. Previous purchases include retail sites in Coral Springs, Davie, Lake Worth Beach and Royal Palm Beach, as well as $40 million for a North Miami strip mall and $25 million for a property adjacent to the Galeria Fort Lauderdale mall.