Retail Center Changes Hands After 32 Years

ALAMEDA, CA-Portland, OR-based Harsch Investment Properties has sold Alameda Towne Centre, a 600,000-square-foot community shopping center here, to Atlanta-based Jamestown Properties, for $181 million. The deal involved $111.4 million in debt and $69.6 million in cash. Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. was the lender. Acquired by Harsch Investment Properties in 1979, the company has continually improved the property, and in 2002, it embarked on a $75-million redevelopment plan, which was completed in 2010. The renovation is an excellent example of a developer who did not want to create another cookie-cutter shopping center that could be found in any geographical market, according to a prepared statement.

“We believed Alameda Island to be a unique community within the Bay Area. While conveniently located close to Berkley, Oakland, and San Francisco, it retains a small town charm with neighborhoods where people know each other and watch out for each others kids like communities used to be,” says Jordan Schnitzer, president of Harsch Investment Properties. “We felt the island deserved a retail redevelopment that reflected its values. To me those values meant creating a shopping center environment with a sense of timelessness—a place you felt at home.”