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Texas

New Jersey firm dives into Texas’ retail market

First National Realty Partners, which specializes in high vacancy retail centers, has picked up Champions Village in northwest Houston

FNPR's Stephen Joseph and (FNPR, New Market Properties)
FNPR's Stephen Joseph and (FNPR, New Market Properties)

A New Jersey private equity firm with a penchant for high vacancy commercial spaces has set its sights on Texas, starting with Houston.

First National Realty Partners bought a 383,000-square-foot retail center in northwest Houston, according to the Houston Business Journal. With 30 percent vacancy, Champions Village Shopping Center offers approximately 120,000 square feet of available space.

The property spans 32 acres on the corner of Champion Forest Drive and Cypress Creek Parkway in the suburb of Greenwood Forest. The neighborhood, which is made up of 73 percent homeowners with an average age of 53, according to 2010 census data, is about a half hour from downtown.

The shopping center is anchored by a 61,600-square-foot Randalls grocery store, which has been a tenant for 50 years. Other tenants include TJ Maxx, Barnes and Noble and Kirkland’s, as well as Painted Tree Boutiques which sells and showcases home décor, furniture, jewelry, and art from local vendors.

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“Texas was definitely a major focus for us, (because) of the business climate, the migration moving down there,” Steven Joseph, the company’s director of acquisitions, said in a statement. “So when we saw a multitenant, grocery-anchored, value-add deal — it just checked all the boxes — we came in very decisive to try to lock this one up.”

In Houston, FM 1960 is an attractive corridor, he said, thanks to strong population growth, high-income neighborhoods and rising demand for retail. Champions Village is less than two miles from the 41-acre Willowbrook Mall that was also snatched up this week by Miami-based Mishorim Gold Properties.

“Our leasing team felt very confident that there were a lot of voids in the market and a lot of tenants that we could bring in here to quickly increase occupancy, increase the (net operating income) and return that value to our investors.”

With 735 grocery-anchored shopping centers changing hands, national retail acquisitions totalled $13.3 billion last year, the largest share of any retail property type for the third year in a row and the second-highest level on record, according to JLL.

[Houston Business Journal] – Maddy Sperling

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Private EquityRetail