RPT Realty To Pay $131.5M For Dedham Mall Amid Hot Market For Grocery-Anchored Centers
RPT Realty will spend $131.5M for another Greater Boston grocery-anchored shopping center, its fourth purchase in the Bay State in the past three months.
The New York-based retail real estate investment trust is under contract for The Wilder Cos.’ 510K SF Dedham open-air shopping center, RPT announced Wednesday. RPT is purchasing the Stop & Shop-anchored center through its grocery-anchored joint venture platform, R2G Venture, which has already spent approximately $500M on nine multi-tenant open-air shopping centers.
“The power of our strategic joint ventures coupled with our wholly owned platform have positioned RPT to quickly redeploy $500M of capital into highly sought after top national markets, which we expect will allow for accelerated and accretive earnings growth in 2021 and 2022,” RPT CEO and President Brian Harper said in a statement.
The center is 91.8% occupied and includes a Lowe’s, T.J. Maxx, Dick’s Sporting Goods and fast-casual restaurants. The Dedham Mall sits in a neighborhood with an average household income of $136K within a 3-mile radius, RPT said. The Wilder Cos. purchased the Dedham Mall for $156M in 2007 from The Flatley Co., according to Norfolk County land records.
RPT entered the Boston market in May with its $104M purchase of the 646K SF Northborough Crossing shopping center, anchored by one of the region’s top-performing Wegmans. The firm’s R2G Venture in July then acquired the Village Shoppes of Canton for $61.5M and the Bedford Marketplace for $54.5M. The company also announced the closing of a $41.6M purchase of the grocery-anchored Newnan Pavilion in the Atlanta area.
Boston is the REIT’s third-largest market, it said, and Greater Boston’s booming life sciences industry is a factor in pursuing regional assets, Harper said in a Q2 earnings call in August.
“Our centers have significant adjacency advantages with 186 life science companies within a 10-mile radius of the four Boston properties that will soon be part of the portfolio,” he said.
While indoor malls are reckoning with an uncertain future, grocery-anchored retail has thrived during the coronavirus pandemic. Major retail players have joined forces to double down on their shopping center strategies, and investment volume is expected to increase through the year, according to JLL.
