590,000-SF Power Center Fetches $81M

LAKEWOOD, WA-MBK Northwest has sold the 590,000-sf power center portion of the 1 million-sf Lakewood Towne Center for $81 million. The new owner is Chicago-based Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, a division of The Inland Real Estate Group of Companies.MBK Northwest is the Portland, OR-based division of MBK Real Estate Ltd., the Irvine, CA-based real estate arm of Mitsui & Co. Ltd., one of the world’s largest corporations. The sale price of the power center is a few million more than MBK’s total estimated cost to buy and redevelop the entire 100-acre property.MBK acquired Lakewood Towne Center, then Lakewood Mall, in October 2001 for $28 million. It then immediately began the process of investing another $50 million to convert the under-performing, 1.2-million-sf enclosed mall and strip center into a slightly smaller four-part development that includes the recently completed power center, a grocery-anchored neighborhood center, an entertainment center, and civic center component that includes Lakewood’s City Hall. The other components are still under development.”It’s been a very, very successful redevelopment for us,” MBK Northwest president Mason Frank told GlobeSt.com on Friday while traveling between Portland and Seattle before poor reception cut the interview short.The Lakewood project is MBK’s biggest in terms of land area and square footage. MBK acquired the Parkway Plaza and Pavilion Mall near Southcenter in 1997 and redeveloped it into Parkway SuperCenter, which it sold off in chunks between 2001 and 2003 for a total of about $130 million. It also renovated SeaTac Village in Federal Way and, in Portland, OR, turned the Jantzen Beach Mall into Jantzen Beach SuperCenter. Retailers in the power center component Lakewood Towne Center that was sold to Inland include: Barnes & Noble, Michaels, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ross, Gottschalks, Old Navy, G.I. Joe’s, Burlington Coat Factory, Famous Footwear, Office Depot, Pier 1, 24 Hour Fitness, PETsMART, Old Country Buffet, a multi-screen movie theater and several other specialty shops and services.