JV Nabs $115M Loan to Acquire Mall Featured in ‘Back to the Future’ Film
By Nick Trombola August 29, 2024 2:57 pm
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Great Scott!
A Southern California mall used as a filming location for the 1985 movie “Back to the Future” is getting eyed for redevelopment, and a pair of developers just secured a nine-figure loan to make that plan a reality. (Now where’s that flux capacitor?)
A joint venture between Los Angeles-based RCB Equities and Newport Beach, Calif.-based Real Estate Development Associates (REDA) has secured a $115 million acquisition loan for the more than 1 million-square-foot Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry, Calif., in the region’s San Gabriel Valley.
Hankey Capital provided the three-year, floating-rate loan tied to the mall at 1600 South Azusa Avenue, about 21 miles east of Downtown L.A. JLL (JLL)’s Capital Markets Debt Advisory team, led by Managing Director Mark Wintner, represented the JV in the deal.
It was not immediately clear who the seller of the property was, or if the sale had already gone through. Continental Partners announced in 2022 that it had sourced $65 million in bridge financing tied to the property, though it’s unclear who the borrower was in that deal.
Constructed in the early 1970s, the mall enjoyed several decades as a busy retail center, famously serving in the mid-1980s as the location for the fictional Twin Pines Mall in the first “Back to the Future” film (wherein Marty McFly first uses the DeLorean time machine in the mall’s parking lot to travel back to 1955).
Yet, the mall could use a time machine itself, as it hit harder times in the years since. Aside from a spree of crimes in and around the mall since the late 1980s, many of its anchor tenants had abdicated before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, including Sears, Toys ‘R’ Us, Forever 21, Macy’s and Burlington. Burlington’s departure earlier this year left just the AMC movie theater and Round1 Bowling & Arcade as the remaining anchors.
To that end, the joint venture plans to redevelop and revitalize the property, according to JLL, though specifics on those plans were not immediately available.
“We are thrilled about the opportunity to transform Puente Hills Mall into a vibrant, modern business generator that aligns with the evolving needs of the City of Industry,” Jason Krotts, founder and principal of REDA, said in a statement.
Nick Trombola can be reached at NTrombola@commercialobserver.com.
