HOUSTON-In a month's time, AmREIT and its affiliated funds have spent $24.3 million for eight properties in Texas, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri. Three deals were shopping centers, with a combined 90,300 sf, and five were land sales totaling 10.7 acres.
In Houston, AmREIT bought a second shopping center from MetroNational in a month's time. The latest to trade is the 16,400-sf Terrace Shops at 5115 Buffalo Speedway in the West University area. In early December, the REIT took over the 18,900-sf Memorial Heights at 920 Studemont St. in the Montrose area, as previously reported by GlobeSt.com.
Chad Braun, AmREIT's CFO, tells GlobeSt.com that the Terrace Shops purchase required the assumption of a $2.8-million loan held by Lehman Brothers. There are nine years left on the term.
Terrace Shops, a Starbucks-anchored property with just 1,217 sf vacant, is located at what is considered an “irreplaceable corner … a front door to a very high-end residential community, Rice University and the Texas Medical Center,” Braun says. According to MetroNational, the average annual income in a one-mile trade area is $100,485.
West of Houston's Galleria, a two-acre site at the intersection of San Felipe Street and Winrock Boulevard was bought from a local private investor. With the deal done, AmREIT has started to raze an apartment complex to make way for a bank, ranging from 5,000 sf to 7,000 sf.
A fourth Houston property–one acre at the intersection of Interstate 45 and West Road–was sold by Motiva Enterprises Ltd. Negotiations are underway with a national fast-food chain. Braun says the ground lease will be 15 to 25 years and the building, 5,000 sf to 10,000 sf. Another one-acre tract was bought from a Woodlands resident in a plan to find a fast-food restaurateur to ground lease the site at Texas 242 and College Park Drive in the master-planned development.
In San Antonio, AmREIT bought 3.7 acres from a local investment group, H Olsen LP, in the master-planned community of Stone Oak. Now, negotiations have begun with a bank for the hard corner while the build-out plan, the 25,000-sf Blanco Pointe, is being worked up for the balance of the acreage.
“AmREIT's search for quality locations has uncovered many opportunities for infill locations by converting multifamily and office uses into retail,” Preston Cunningham, AmREIT's vice president of development, says in a press release.
The buying spree also rolled the deed to an under-construction 55,000-sf shopping center, Peakway Market Square, in Raleigh, NC. Bought from a Raleigh-based limited liability company, it is 50% pre-leased to mostly local tenants.
In Illinois and Missouri, AmREIT bought three acres to ground lease to Advanced Automotive, which is building four 7,000-sf stores with a development partner.
AmREIT drew down from two funds, $10 million and $15 million, to acquire some properties in the package. The funds target single- and multi-tenant retail purchases in a three- to five-year hold strategy.
“These acquisitions are a fundamental part of our growth strategy,” Braun says in a press release. “Last year we invested $32 million and this year we plan to outpace that activity by 100% to 150%.
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