The seller is Amerishop Target LP, led by DRA Advisors of New York City, which started marketing the eight-acre property at Texas 6 and Settlers Way in Sugar Land in fall 2003. The 19-year-old store went dark as part of Minneapolis-based Target's plan to replace smaller, older locations with large-format Super Targets. Vaughan Ford in the Houston office for Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Commercial tells GlobeSt.com that the Target lease expires at the end of the month.

Ford says the Houston buyers, John S. Beeson and Ali Ebrahimi, outbid at least three other investors jockeying for the property and closed the takeover within 45 days of placing the contract. In most cases, empty big boxes are "obsolete locations," he says, "but this property in particular is right in the middle of Sugar Land." The eight-acre tract abuts the 263,000-sf Williams Trace Center, a grocery-anchored property owned by Weingarten Realty Investors of Houston.

Beeson says the purchase was particularly appealing because the empty store is primed for redevelopment because uses are unrestricted. He says the deal closed with two letters of intent in hand, one 36,000 sf and the other, 25,000 sf. The extent of any renovations will be determined by the tenants, says Beeson, who along with Ebrahimi owns 23 other shopping centers in the Houston area.