Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) has unloaded another large retail complex in the United States, bringing its total shopping center property sales to $1.7 billion in its larger move to divest from America and focus on Europe.
The real estate owner and developer announced Friday that it sold two parcels that make up the 1.5 million-square-foot Westfield Mission Valley shopping centers in San Diego for $290 million. The deal includes selling Westfield Mission Valley “East” to Lowe Enterprises and Real Capital Solutions, and Westfield Mission Valley “West” to Sunbelt Investment Holdings.
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The sale price is a 12 percent discount to the last unaffected appraisal, and it reflects an initial yield of 8.5 percent on the net operating income. URW said it is 71 percent occupied and described the mall as a mature asset, opening in the early 1960s and undergoing its last significant renovation in the 1990s.
Lowe and Real Capital Solutions plan to upgrade and reposition the 1.1 million-square-foot open-air retail center portion it acquired as a walkable mixed-use village with multifamily uses. It’s on 41 acres at 1640 Camino del Rio North near Interstates 8 and 805 and Highway 163, and it is opposite the San Diego Trolley’s Mission Valley Center Station. It currently features 73 shops and restaurants, including Target, Nordstrom Rack, Macy’s Home, Michael’s and 24-Hour Fitness. The center also includes the AMC Mission Valley 20 movie theater.
L.A.-based Lowe owns other mixed-use, apartment, office, civic and restaurant space in San Diego, including the renovated 675-room Town and Country resort in the Mission Valley area.
“We are well acquainted with this property and have long had an interest in its potential both as a thriving, ongoing retail destination and as an opportunity to bring much-needed housing to this community,” Mike McNerney, executive vice president at Lowe, said in a statement.
URW’s Mission Valley sale follows other big dispositions in the U.S. over the past couple of years. Among them are Westfield Brandon in Florida, and Westfield North County in California earlier this year; the Promenade development parcel, and The Village in the San Fernando Valley, which was sold to Stan Kroenke for $325 million. It also includes Westfield Santa Anita in Los Angeles County (which was the largest mall sale in the U.S. since 2018 at $537.5 million), as well as Westfield South Shore in New York and Westfield Trumbull Connecticut in 2022.
URW operates 78 shopping centers in 12 countries, including 45 that carry the Westfield brand.
Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.
