“It was kind of wild. We dropped everything we had going on and brought in a team of due diligence experts. We were there from morning to night.” She also praises Leo Solarte, managing partner of Greenstone Partners, for helping cement the deal. “He was the seller's broker,” but really assisted everyone scrambling to tie up loose ends. “He held this deal together when it could have fallen apart half a dozen times.”

“The only way for year-end closings to work is a team effort,” coupled with the “focus and drive of a buyer who is enthusiastic about a property,” says Rebekah Carlson, Next Realty's director of marketing. And Zaslavsky adds that in those hectic days, the normal corporate hierarchy disappeared. “Our acquisitions analyst and the president of the company were there going through files.”

The transaction closed on December 31, 2012—just in time to satisfy the seller's year-end need—with the key parties to the sale all in different winter vacation spots including India, Mexico, and Florida.

In the past year, Next has worked to revive their new center, terminating several leases, adding new tenants and renovating the once-crumbling facade. “It's going to have a whole new life when we're done with it,” Zaslavsky says. Tenants now occupy 85% of the property, up from 75% one year ago. The Vitamin Shoppe, for example, signed a long-term lease for 3,000-square-feet on the end-cap which they will occupy by the end of the year. Other new tenants include Fred Loya Insurance and Blackhawk Restaurant Group.

Zaslavsky says she considers the Oak Lawn Promenade experience “our prototype for other deals.” And the firm once again has funds available for all-cash year-end acquisitions, this time through its Next Realty Fund VIII, LP investment vehicle. “Even if something came up today, we could close it by the year's end.”