LA Money Seeks Phoenix Booty

It seems LA has a love affair with Phoenix. (It's like we're in a RomCom. Or perhaps a CommRom--commercial romance.)

BH Properties just bought Ross Plaza, a 65k SF neighborhood retail center anchored by Ross Dress For Less off North 43rd Avenue for $3M. It comes on the heels of BH's acquisition of Gilbert Town Center (above), a 159k SF site in Gilbert for $13.4M. BH's Steve Jaffe tells us just why it has a new love affair with Phoenix.

Before the recession, BH Properties embarked on a buying campaign that focused on being the low-cost provider in a wide spread of markets—from its native California all the way east to Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, and even north to Washington, Wisconsin, and Ohio. But, Steve tells us, as 2008's credit crisis descended, BH was spread a bit too thin. It proved to be challenging from a management standpoint, especially when BH traveled to markets where it only had one asset: “We realized strategically that, as a result of the downturn, opportunities were going to present themselves closer to our base in LA.”

While BH did not lose a property to foreclosure during the downturn, some assets in its far-flung one-off territories are now being culled. (Just like you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, putting one egg in a basket isn't great either.) Among those potential exits are the Carolinas, Las Vegas, and eventually Atlanta. Phoenix has been BH's darling. It bulked up here initially on Class-C apartments, including Vista Ventana (here) and Sunpointe Apartments. But rebounding pricing for multifamily is now causing BH to look elsewhere for its returns—thus, enter retail and industrial properties. Or as he called it, a "more asset-balanced approach in Arizona."