Area construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com that Inland's per-sf-price was below replacement cost of the two-year-old, 565,000-sf MarketPlace at Mill Creek, located adjacent to the 1.9-million-sf Mall of Georgia in Buford, GA; and the one-year-old, 300,000-sf Stonecrest MarketPlace, adjacent to the six-year-old, 1.3-million-sf Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia, GA, DeKalb County.

Stonecrest MarketPlace was built for $48 million or about $160 per sf, according to Shopping Center World, a trade publication. If the larger, 53-acre MarketPlace at Mill Creek was built at the same construction cost, the estimated total would have been $90.4 million.

Inland believes it has struck a good deal. "These shopping centers are excellent additions to Inland Retail's portfolio of retail properties," now totaling 14.6 million sf among 132 properties in 12 Southeastern states, says Joe Cosenza, chairman, Inland Real Estate Acquisitions Inc. "It's not often in this current market that you get the opportunity to add two centers that are on the periphery of major malls in the highly desired Atlanta market."