Must Love Sale-Leasebacks: Global Net Lease Will Shed Noncore Properties for $1.8 Billion

Global Net Lease has agreed to sell 100 noncore properties to retail real estate investor RCG Ventures for about $1.8 billion at an 8.4% cap rate. Global Net Lease said Wednesday the transaction would position the REIT “as a pure-play, single-tenant net lease company.” Including this deal, which is set to close by the end of June, Global Net Lease expects to have sold nearly $3 billion worth of properties from early 2024 to the end of 2025. Global Net Lease owns more than 1,300 properties in 11 countries encompassing over 66 million square feet. It merged with The Necessity Retail REIT in 2023. Since its founding in 2003, RCG has purchased more than $1.6 billion worth of retail properties.

2 Valuable Commodities: Eggs and Grocery-Anchored Centers

Grocery-anchored centers are as hot a commodity as eggs, based on recent deals and developments. Federal just bought the 674,000-square-foot, Whole Foods-anchored Del Monte in Monterey, California, for $123.5 million. And The Georgetown Co. has purchased Waterside, a 156,000-square-foot, Whole Foods-anchored center in Fort Worth, Texas. Meanwhile, some developers are building grocery-anchored shopping centers from the ground up. Over the past 15 months, for example, Barclay Group has opened seven Fry’s Marketplace-anchored centers in the Phoenix area. Barclay isn’t stopping there, though. A spokesperson told C+CT the developer plans to build about a dozen more grocery-anchored centers over the next few years.

What’s attracting investors and developers to grocery-anchored centers? For one thing, they beckon loyal customers. According to Placer.ai, roughly 60% of consumers visited a grocery store at least 10 times in the past three months. That compares with 6% to 7% for open-air centers, 3% for enclosed malls and 2% to 3% for outlet centers. “Retailers looking for a steady source of foot traffic should look no further than grocery-anchored centers,” Placer.ai research director Caroline Wu told C+CT. “Centers without these types of essential retailers may be more subject to fluctuations like seasonality and weather for foot traffic. However, groceries are a necessity and when customers make weekly grocery runs, the adjoining retailers benefit.”

It’s Final: Joann Will Close Its More Than 800 Stores

The shutdown of bankrupt fabric and crafts retailer Joann’s more than 800 stores will offer millions of square feet of backfill opportunities for retailers. Joann announced on Monday that GA Group, whose real estate services include asset sales and corporate restructurings, and Joann’s term-loan agent, Wilmington Savings Fund Society, which operates as WSFS Bank, won the bidding for substantially all of Joann’s assets. As of January 2023, Joann’s average store measured 22,500 square feet, according to a Form 10-K report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Based on that figure, Joann would be vacating about 18 million square feet. On Feb. 12, it had disclosed plans to close about 500 stores, meaning roughly 300 stores would have remained open.

The winning bidders aim to proceed with going-out-of-business sales at all Joann stores and a wind-down of the retailer’s operations. In its Monday statement, Joann said the company’s executives, board members, lawyers and advisers had “made every possible effort to pursue a more favorable outcome that would keep the company in business.”

Scheels Will Open a Mega-Store at a Milwaukee-Area Mall

A Store About Bees

Folks in the Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Irondale are buzzing about a new store coming to town. Foxhound Bee Co. is building what’s touted as Alabama’s first beekeeping retail store and education center, Bham Now reported. The 5,000-square-foot Beekeeping and Pollinator Education Center is expected to open in September. Bham Now wrote: “The new facility is designed to serve as both a retail shop for beekeepers and an educational space where beekeepers and the community can explore the wonders of honey bees and pollinators.”

Real Estate Veteran Morton Olshan Has Died

Morton “Mort” Olshan, founder and chair emeritus of Olshan Properties, died on Feb. 19 at age 99. He founded Janoff & Olshan in 1959. One of Olshan’s career highlights was the 1967 purchase of Mall Properties, a developer of regional malls and suburban retail community centers. Mall Properties adopted the Olshan Properties brand name in 2014. Today, the company’s assets under management include 9 million square feet of retail. In 2000, Olshan became a principal owner of the New York Yankees. He also was known for his philanthropic work, including the conversion of New York City’s B. Altman & Co. department store building into a nonprofit education and research facility. In honor of his philanthropy, The New York Landmarks Conservancy named Olshan a Living Landmark in 2021.