CHICAGO—As reported in GlobeSt.com last week, Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc. had a busy October. The Oak Brook, IL-based company facilitated the acquisition by Inland-related parties of 13 mostly retail properties located across the nation. And although most are not in what are typically considered the top core markets, today Joe Cosenza, company president and vice chairman of The Inland Real Estate Group, Inc. tells GlobeSt.com that he believes that all "were some of the best income-producing properties in their markets." 

One of the most important of the new acquisitions, for example, is Settlers Ridge, a 472,572 square foot property anchored by Giant Eagle Market District and located in Pittsburgh. "That anchor is doing over $100 million in sales," Cosenza points out. And Cinemark Theatres at Settlers brings in about $10 million, or about $200 per square foot. Furthermore, the LA Fitness at the center attracts about 1,200 people each day. 

Other retail properties bought by Inland last month include: Oquirrh Mountain Marketplace, a multi-tenant retail center located in South Jordan, UT; The Village at Burlington Creek, a 158,046 square foot retail center located in Kansas City; Blossom Valley Plaza, a 111,558 square foot shopping center in Turlock, CA; Marketplace at El Paseo, a 224,683 square foot shopping center located in Fresno, CA; Milford Marketplace, a 112,257 square foot shopping center in Milford, CT; a portfolio of four Walgreens stores all located within the Chicagoland area, and several other developments. The total amount expended for all of the purchases was $432.2 million. 

Inland has also recently been buying a significant amount of student housing, and last month was no exception. It picked up Arcadia Student Living, a 205-unit community at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, from Sanctuary Cos. The first thing Inland asks when considering any student housing, Cosenza says, is "whether the student body is increasing, and at UNC it is. You also want to make sure the school doesn't have enough, and won't have enough, beds for the students." Above all, any desirable community will have, like Arcadia, a shuttle service to the school or be within walking distance. As for amenities, like much of the most modern student housing, to visitors Arcadia sometimes resembles a resort rather than an old-style dorm. "It appears to be a place you would like to live for awhile," Cosenza says.

The company's new Walgreens were the only purchases in a top core market, and the drug store chain's recent purchase of its rival Rite Aid may have influenced that choice. Walgreens will soon have to decide which of the outlets under the two brands overlap one another, and which have to close. Therefore, Inland prefers to buy Walgreens sited not just on good locations, but in areas with an extensive population. "I don't want to be in what you call secondary or tertiary markets," Cosenza says. One of the new Walgreens properties, at 4001 W. Irving Park Rd. in Chicago, is typical of the portfolio in that it is in a highly-trafficked urban area. And if Walgreens decides to exit the property, he asks "can I rent the building to someone else? And my answer to that is, absolutely."

When he looks at the retail market in general, Cosenza expresses the optimistic view that the present economic expansion could have a long way to go, partly because we are digging ourselves out of an incredibly deep trough. "In my lifetime, we have never hit such a downturn. When people ask, what inning are we in, and say we are in the seventh or eighth, I find it difficult to agree." Instead, he believes "we have gotten into the longest baseball game that we have seen in a long time."