LAS VEGAS-Making its initial foray into the Las Vegas multifamily market, Excel Trust has purchased an 118,763-square-foot neighborhood center. Although the price was undisclosed, real estate sources say the center traded for $17.5 million in all-cash deal.

Albertsons and CVS Pharmacy are the grocery-and-drug store anchors of the Anthem Highlands Shopping Center, which sits on a 13-acre site at northwest corner of Anthem Parkway and Bicentennial  Parkway.  Other national tenants in the center include Bank of America, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Subway and Wells Fargo Bank.

The trade area was a selling point, according to Mark Lucescu, president of Newport Beach, CA-based Lucescu Realty, who represented the seller, Regency Centers. Lucesco cited local household incomes of $122,991in a one-mile radius of the center and $119,413 in a three miles radius.  “It’s an institutional quality piece of real estate,” Lucescu says in a statement.

Demand from investors was high, according to Lucescu, who reported that 18 different investors made competing offers for the center.  “Due to the strong investor demand, the on buyers invited to big in the second round were ‘all-cash’ investors that did not required third-party financing to complete the purchase,” he says in a statement.

Lucescu represented the seller in sales transactions, while the Excel Trust represented itself, in an unusual transaction that Lucescu describes as a “principal; to principal transaction.”

Both San Diego, CA-based  Excel Trust and the seller,  Jacksonville, FL-based Regency  Centers, are publicly traded REITs.