CBRE Investment Management, MCB Real Estate Buy U.S. Grocery-Anchored Portfolio

CBRE Investment Management, an independent affiliate and specialized investment arm of CBRE, has expanded its U.S. retail platform with the acquisition of a grocery-anchored portfolio spanning five states, according to a Wednesday announcement. 

In a joint venture with Baltimore-based investment and management firm MCB Real Estate, the firms bought a retail portfolio that spans 1.1 million square feet across seven grocery-anchored properties in Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas. A spokesperson for CBRE Investment Management declined to disclose the portfolio’s purchase price.

“We’ve been building conviction in the durable income thesis of necessity retail for some time,” Liz Troni, portfolio manager for CBRE Investment Management’s U.S. direct core strategy, said in a statement. “New retail supply has been structurally constrained since the GFC [Global Financial Crisis], and grocery-anchored centers combine that scarcity with the daily-needs tenancy that holds up across cycles. This acquisition fits squarely with that conviction.”

The largest of the portfolio’s assets is the 285,518-square-foot Marketplace Shopping Center in Temple, Texas. Two other grocery-anchored Texas complexes, Preston Trail Village in Dallas and Spouts Crossing in Hurst, are also in the portfolio. 

Other locations part of the portfolio include Riverview Shopping Center in Durham, N.C., Northlake Shopping Center in Mandeville, La., Eagan Town Centre in Eagan, Minn., and Kauai Village Shopping Center in Kapa’a, Hawaii.

MCB will serve as the portfolio’s operator, overseeing asset management and leasing. The platform currently reports 22 million square feet of real estate assets totaling $4 billion in value. More than $1 billion of that value has been acquired over the past 12 months, according to the Wednesday announcement. 

“Adding these institutional-quality and high-performing assets to our rapidly expanding national portfolio reflects both our conviction and the continued confidence investors have in grocery-anchored retail,” P. David Bramble, MCB’s co-founder and managing partner, said in a statement.

MCB most recently secured Costco as its retail anchor tenant at a 280-acre development north of Washington, D.C., in March, and it purchased a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, department store at 458 86th Street in a joint venture in August.

News of the portfolio acquisition also comes as grocery-anchored retail centers continue to draw investment due to stable income and high foot traffic. Before CBRE and MCB, Nuveen Real Estate was the latest to follow that trend, raising $330 million to acquire grocery-anchored hubs across the U.S. in March.

Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com.