"In addition to considerably reducing the percentage of retail assets in our portfolio, the proceeds from this sale of unencumbered properties allow us to enhance our liquidity position and create further balance sheet flexibility," Haddad said. "More importantly, this transaction represents a significant step toward achieving our longer-term goal of improving overall portfolio quality, focused on ground-up multifamily and urban infill mixed-use development projects, leading to both net asset value growth and future value creation to our shareholders."

Although the coronavirus pandemic has caused many retailers to suffer, with retailers like J. Crew filing for Chapter 11 protection, grocery-anchored retail centers are performing well. In March, GlobeSt.com reported that the investment class has easily become one of the most popular. Gary Tenzer, co-founding principal at George Smith Partners previously told GlobeSt.com "unanchored centers experience the most distress in downturns as the small service-oriented tenants are typically undercapitalized and often cannot weather downturns."