LOS ANGELES-Longtime retail developer and operator Robert Champion of Champion Real Estate Co. is looking to acquire $500 million in retail real estate in the Western US in the next three years, GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively. Champion, who has not been buying or building new projects since about 2006, tells GlobeSt.com that his company and his financial partners will co-invest in all deals and are already in escrow on a couple of properties. Champion has hired Steve Boss, formerly CEO and founder of Afton Property Investment Corp., as the firm’s new managing director of retail investment and development to spearhead the initiative.

"We are focusing on retail assets because we think they have been hammered the most," Champion says. "We have been waiting until we thought the regional banks would start to move on their non-performing retail, and that is starting to happen."

Champion spent the past year "going liquid" and identified three different private equity groups from the East Coast that don't have operators on the West Coast who want to make a play here. "We have agreed to co-invest, and as a result, we have about $200 million of cash that we want to deploy to acquire about $500 million of real estate," he tells GlobeSt.com. He and his investment partners are looking at all types of retail properties, from high-end storefronts to regional malls, with the only limitation that, "We can't look at anything less than about $10 million." One of the deals they're bidding on now is in the $150 million range.