(Mark Your Calendars: RealShare REAL ESTATE 2012, March 22nd in Los Angeles).
WALNUT CREEK, CA-Real estate company Simon Property Group is looking “outside of the box” for tenants to lease up Hilltop Mall, newly signed leasing agent Grubb & Ellis tells GlobeSt.com. Aside from traditional retailers, Grubb & Ellis will aggressively market the property for medical offices as well as family-entertainment and education uses including restaurants, rock climbing, indoor soccer and satellite locations for vocational and trade schools.
“We’re not just after retailers,” Adria Giacomelli, a senior associate with Grubb & Ellis, tells GlobeSt.com. “We’re staying open-minded, calling up every one of the uses I mentioned and seeing if we can get tours and interest.”
The 1.1-million-square-foot center has 180,000 square feet of vacant space, which is mostly shop space, Giacomelli continues. “We’re talking to a tenant who wants 90,000 square feet of contiguous space, and we would have to build up for them. We are trying to accommodate their requests, figuring out what it would cost to make it work for a tenant that’s going to enhance the center.”
Giacomelli adds that building up the mall would require elevators, which cost $250,000 to construct, in addition to other construction that could cost Simon more than $500,000 to complete. Despite the price, she says, Simon is not ruling out this option.
Simon handles the leasing for all of its other retail properties, but has retained Grubb & Ellis to do a “mom and pop outreach” for the Richmond Mall, which has not been faring as well as some of the other centers in the area, Giacomelli continues. While the region has suffered some crime in the recent past, security has been beefed up in the Richmond area, alleviating the problem, she adds.
Simon could not be reached for comment by GlobeSt.com before deadline.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
