Sobrato Organization Sells Strip Mall in Cupertino for $93M

The Sobrato Organization has sold a 196,700-square-foot strip mall in Cupertino for $92.5 million.

The Mountain View-based real estate investment firm sold the Homestead Shopping Center at 20572-20688 Homestead Road, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The buyer was an affiliate of MetLife Investment Management, a unit of New York-based MetLife.

The deal for the retail center at Homestead Road and North De Anza Boulevard works out to $470 per square foot.

Sobrato purchased the 15-acre property in 2010 for an undisclosed sum. Its anchor tenant, a 38,000-square-foot Joey Franco’s PW Markets, had just closed.

The developer then redeveloped the shopping center, built in 1976, completing the project in 2014.

The revamped retail center now contains five buildings anchored by a Safeway supermarket. Tenants include Ross Dress for Less, Michael’s, Rite Aid, Ultra and a FedEx location.

The center is across the 280 Freeway from Apple’s Infinite Loop campus, the computer maker’s former headquarters.

Early this year, MetLife Investment Management, the institutional asset management arm of the New York-based insurer, sold 22 bank properties in California to JPMorgan Chase for $138 million.

The Sobrato Organization, a major South Bay developer, has built nearly 24.5 million square feet of office, R&D and multifamily real estate. Its portfolio contains 7.5 million square feet of office and R&D space, plus 30 apartment complexes in the Bay Area, according to its website.

Last month, its Sobrato Family Foundation paid $49.5 million for the 140-room Normandy Park Apartments at 48 and 50 Washington Street in Santa Clara.
In February, Sobrato was poised to buy the 171,000-square-foot headquarters for Athleta in San Francisco’s Embarcadero for $80 million.

— Dana Bartholomew