Thursday, August 21, 2008

Owen Brown Village Center Sold

Nellis Corp, a developer based in Rockville, Maryland, recently purchased the Owen Brown Village Center from Winthrop Realty Trust, a New York based publicly traded (FUR) real estate investment trust.

This village center, originally opened in 1979, was originally developed by the real estate division of Giant Foods and is the only village center in Columbia that was not developed by The Rouse Company.

The purchase price was $5 million dollars for the 73,380 square foot shopping center, which seems to be a bargain price ($68.00 per square foot) considering that most commercial buildings in Columbia now trade for well over $200.00 per square foot.

5 comments:

B. Santos said...

WB,

73k sq ft? I thought the "renovated" Giant in Owen Brown was on the order of 55k sq ft by itself. Did Giant Food maintain ownership of the store and the rest of the Village Center was sold to another owner?

wordbones said...

Bill,

I thought the same thing when I read the release from CoStar. It is possible that the rest of the center only adds another 18,000 square feet but it seems like more than that. It certainly doesn't look like a total of 128,000 square feet (55K grocery plus 73K of inline stores).

-wb

Anonymous said...

Did Giant get a sweetheart lease rate for a period of time to offset the low ST price?

wordbones said...

Tom,
I don't know but that would certainly explain the lower sale price.

Giant may have gotten a reduced rent in exchange for the investment they made in renovating and expanding that store.

-wb

Jay U said...

Is Nellis Corp going to renovate the entire village center as a result of the purchase and keep the Giant as is? Has there been a decision made on what the plans are for the center and if so, what is the time line?