Market Square Shopping Center offers 103,000 sf of retail shopping space and was leased to 92% capacity at the time of its sale. National outlets TJ Maxx and a Trader Joe's gourmet food market serve as the property's anchors. Brandywine Town Center is designed differently from Market Square, as it is basically two shopping centers in one. What is known as Phase I of Brandywine encompasses 450,000 sf of value retail space, 97% of which is currently leased. Tenants include Bed Bath & Beyond, KB Toys, Lowe's, Old Navy, and Regal Cinema. Phase II of the center is slightly smaller at 420,000 sf, with Target accounting for nearly 140,000 sf of that space.

"When we first established our joint venture fund in 2001, our goal was to acquire $300 million in property for this year," Acadia's Jon Grisham tells GlobeSt.com. "Now we're two-thirds of the way there with the Brandywine/Market Square acquisition. That put us ahead of target." Having met a great percentage of its objective at the start of the year, the JV is left with 12 months on its hands—but it has no plans of just sitting back and watching the remainder of 2003 and all its potential offerings go by without notice. "We have no intentions of taking our acquisition people and putting them on vacation," Grisham adds.