Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is going local with its latest investment in U.S. real estate.

Norges Bank Investment Management invested $500M with Asana Partners to buy high-quality neighborhood retail assets, the Charlotte-based retail investment firm announced Tuesday. It is at least the second — and a relatively small — bet on U.S. retail real estate from Norges this year.

Asana Partners, which has more than $9B in assets under management, and Norges are creating a fund called Asana Partners Strategic Partners I to hold the investments. The strategic partnership is starting with a 50% stake in a portfolio of grocery-anchored retail centers but will also target unanchored centers, street retail and mixed-used assets for investment.

“Forming APSP I reflects our shared conviction in the strength and resilience of neighborhood retail real estate and expands our existing capability to capitalize on attractive investment opportunities across the country,” Asana partner Reed Kracke said in a statement.

Asana and Norges didn’t disclose the properties the sovereign wealth fund bought into and declined a request from Bisnow to provide additional details Tuesday morning. Asana’s portfolio spans 10.3M SF in 25 cities, according to its website.  

The partnership with Norges is running alongside Asana’s existing Asana Partners Select Fund, and Asana has acquired at least two assets separately since the start of the year. It paid $151M for a Huntington Beach, California, shopping center in February, the same month it cut a deal to acquire a 197K SF retail center called The Arboretum in Austin.

The investment comes after Norges announced a strategic pivot to diversify its real estate investments across sectors and geographies.

The manager of some $2.2T in assets as part of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global said in December that it would invest up to 7% of its capital in global real estate, with a focus on buying into platforms and funds. Norges is looking to hold a diversified portfolio spread across the globe, with 30% to 70% of its portfolio allocated to North America. 

The three-year strategic plan aims to create a more balanced portfolio after the firm told the Norwegian government in a November letter that its real estate investments had underperformed its equity and bond holdings. 

Norges has already been putting some of that capital into grocery-anchored retail. Last month, it partnered with TPG, PSP Investments, La Caisse and others to buy Echo Realty and its 230 retail centers across the Midwest and Southeast in a deal valued at around $2B. 

Grocery-anchored retail and other necessity-based asset classes have become popular investment targets for institutional capital, including a $1.6B fund launched in December by Bain Capital Real Estate and 11North.

New York-based DLC Management Corp. has acquired an open-air shopping center in Charlotte’s Northlake neighborhood.

The center, Perimeter Woods, sits at 10125 Perimeter Parkway, across from Northlake Mall, and is accessible via Interstates 485 and 77, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. The 127K SF retail center is anchored by Best Buy, PetSmart, Burlington and Michael’s. The property spans more than 20 acres along the parkway.

The $36.6M deal for the site was part of a six-property acquisition by DLC, which specializes in open-air shopping center development. DLC owns and operates nearly 100 centers in the U.S., including the 303K SF Pavilion at King’s Grant in Concord, north of Charlotte. The six-property deal adds more than 1M SF to the firm’s portfolio across several states, according to the CBJ.

The Perimeter Woods acquisition reflects continued investor interest in Charlotte’s retail market, despite the challenges the 1.1M SF Northlake Mall across the street has faced. The enclosed mall sold last year for about $39M following a period of financial distress. 

Open-air shopping centers tend to be more reliable assets than enclosed malls, as their mainstream retail anchors, like grocery markets or big-box stores, provide stable shopping traffic, according to investment firm RockStep Capital. Enclosed malls include a variety of tenants to manage, from entertainment to dining to fitness, and often require longer lease terms. Open-air centers usually have lower operating costs, better visibility and accessibility, and are more sustainable than indoor malls, according to a McNeil Engineering report.

In recent years, many retailers have shifted from malls toward “outdoor, non-mall locations such as grocery-anchored shopping centers and strip malls,” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024.

Among three different mall formats — indoor malls, open-air shopping centers and outlet malls — open-air shopping centers saw the most traffic growth year-over-year, according to the April Placer.ai mall index. Those centers’ visits rose 3.5% in April compared to the previous year, while indoor malls saw a 2.2% increase.

Retail vacancy in Charlotte is among the lowest in the U.S., at less than 2.9%, according to a first-quarter Colliers report. The rate has stayed below 3% for three consecutive years.  

Charlotte has a few more enclosed malls in addition to Northlake, including SouthPark Mall, Concord Mills and Carolina Place Mall. But the metro has many more open-air shopping sites — at least 15 open-air malls, like Phillips Place — as well as walkable shopping-oriented villages.

DLC made the acquisition with a fund managed by investment adviser DRA Advisors, the CBJ reported. The seller was KRG Charlotte Perimeter Woods LLC, affiliated with Kite Realty Group. 

Charlotte-based Atrium Health is seeking to build its first hospital in Metro Atlanta.

Atrium is proposing to build an acute care general teaching hospital on a 40-acre campus in Fulton County, according to a filing with the Georgia Department of Community Health, first reported by Axios.

The proposed facility would help provide care to underserved patients who previously went to WellStar Atlanta Medical Center and its affiliate WellStar AMC South, which both closed in 2022, according to the filing.

The hospital would include an emergency department and could provide other services, such as perinatal and neonatal care, diagnostic imaging and surgeries. It would start out with 50 beds and be affiliated with the Morehouse School of Medicine, Axios reported.

Atrium, which is part of Advocate Health, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The proposed hospital would anchor a mixed-use campus at 675 Metropolitan Parkway SW that is intended to include office, retail, residential and medical facilities. It would be located about half a mile from Morehouse School of Medicine’s main campus.

Atrium bought the 40-acre campus near the West End MARTA Station in 2024. It hadn’t previously revealed its plans for the land — home to MET Atlanta, a 1.1M SF historic warehouse — since the purchase. But one city council member predicted at the time that it would mean a new hospital for Atlanta.

In May, city officials unveiled that Atlanta was teaming up with Morehouse and a nonprofit health system to build an $800M hospital, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported. The officials didn’t disclose the nonprofit or where the hospital would be located. 

Atrium Health has two other health facilities in Georgia: Atrium Health Navicent in Macon and Atrium Health Floyd in Rome, according to Atlanta News First.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. is consolidating its workforce into a new space at Broadwest, a 600,000-square-foot mixed-use project in Nashville.  The Nashville Business Journal reports that the 51,000-square-foot space will include a new client center with twice the capacity of its current space, flexible workspaces, access to on-site amenities, and capacity for up to 280 employees across two floors, with room for continued growth. The new space will be open to JPMorgan Chase employees starting in early 2028.

The office will feature J.P. Morgan signage at the top of a Nashville building for the first time.

Brie Bley of CBRE represented JPMorganChase and Bill Adair and Ashley Marshall represented Propst Companies in the transaction.

Opening in 2021, the Broadwest development also includes a 34-story condo tower, the 234-room Conrad Nashville hotel and 125,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

The bank has 500 employees across the state, with nearly 400 employees in the Greater Nashville area.

Amwins is building a 15-story, 250,000-square-foot office tower at the former Sharon Station site, located at 4415 Sharon Road. It plans to use the site as its headquarters.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports the tower will house nine office floors atop six parking levels as well as a lobby and about 7,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The new offices will replace six structures currently on the site. They are expected to be demolished next week.

Delivery is expected in 2.5 years. Amwins plans to begin moving its more than 500 employees into the space during the fourth quarter of 2028.

The Keith Corp., is developing the site. Brasfield & Gorrie is lead contractor and LS3P Associates and Redline Design Group will be the architects. Thrift Commercial Real Estate Services is handling retail leasing for the project.

Amwins acquired the site from local developer Childress Klein in December 2024 for $16.8 million,.

Belgravia Management has chosen developer Revival Partners to convert 200 North College, a five-story, 458,169-square-foot building at 200 N. College St., into a mix of uses. The Triad Business Journal reports plans call for 290 apartment units and 50,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, restaurant and commercial space.

Construction will begin this summer with delivery expected in mid- to late 2027.

The building previously housed Winston-Salem-based Wake Forest’s MBA and professional studies programs. The university vacated its 30,000-square-foot space last summer, recently establishing a new campus at The Pearl innovation district.

CBRE’s Darrell Palasciano and Kaitlyn Fitch will handle retail and commercial leasing for the project, which is now underway.

Belgravia acquired the site in August 2025 for $3.5 million.

200 North College has remained largely vacant for years since BofA moved to Legacy Union’s Bank of America Tower in 2019. It is one of several obsolete uptown properties marked for future conversion.

Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based CenterSquare has acquired four retail properties, adding to the firm’s essential service retail portfolio.

The latest additions bring CenterSquare’s portfolio to 80 properties nationwide. The acquisitions include the Trade Court Shoppes in Charlotte, the Deer Valley Shops in Phoenix, Lake Mead Gateway Plaza in Henderson, and The Shops at Foothills Mall in Fort Collins.

The Trade Court Shops is a 100% occupied property spanning 14,721 square feet and is the company’s 10th property in the Charlotte MSA. Deer Valley Shops features 17,043 square feet of retail space and is 83% leased. It is CenterSquare’s seventh property in the Phoenix MSA.

Lake Mead Gateway Plaza is a 19,671-square-foot retail center that is 100% occupied and marks the firm’s sixth acquisition in the Las Vegas MSA. CenterSquare’s fourth Colorado property, The Shops at Foothills Mall, is a 111,220-square-foot asset that is currently 88% leased.

H-E-B plans to construct a 115,000-square-foot traditional H-E-B store and a 50,000-square-foot Joe V’s Smart Shop in Garland. The Garland City Council approved development agreements for both stores. The agreements approved by the City Council include incentive packages for both stores.

The Business Journal reports he company plans to invest roughly $19.6 million into the flagship location and approximately $8.5 million into the shopping center housing Joe V’s for additional facade and infrastructure upgrades.  

Meanwhile, H-E-B is closing its grocery store at Spicewood Springs Road and U.S. Highway 183 in Austin on July 31. The dated store at 12860 Research Blvd. is approaching the end of its lease.

H-E-B operates over 455 stores across the state and Mexico and its annual revenue last year totaled $49.6 billion.

Lee & Associates NYC completed a new office lease for Jones Jones LLC at 44 Wall St. in Manhattan’s Financial District.  The law firm signed a 10-year, nine-month lease for 5,311 square feet.

Jones Jones will relocate from its former office at 5 Hanover Square amid the growing number of residential conversions taking place throughout the Financial District, including the planned conversion of 5 Hanover. The firm selected 44 Wall St. to remain in Lower Manhattan, citing the neighborhood’s accessibility, extensive transportation options, dining and retail amenities and strong value proposition for office tenants. 

The landlord was represented by George Comfort & Sons’ Alexander Bermingham.  Tenant representation was handled by Todd Korren and Noah Caspi of Lee NYC. 

“Lower Manhattan continues to attract tenants seeking quality office space at a strong value, particularly as older office properties throughout the neighborhood undergo residential conversions,” said Korren.  “Jones Jones was focused on remaining in the Financial District, and 44 Wall St. offered an ideal combination of location, accessibility and efficiency for the firm’s next chapter.”

StreetLIghts and Eastern Federal have been greenlit by the Charlotte City Council to move ahead on the redevelopment of a site that includes a vintage theater. Eastern Federal owns the theater site.

Dubbed The Manor, The Charlotte Business Journal reports the project is expected to include between 120 and 130 residential units and about 35,000 square feet of retail uses. The site currently has about 40,000 square feet of existing retail space, including the 70-year-old Regal Manor Twin Theatre, which closed during COVID.

Besides the movie theater, the site has a few retail buildings and an office building. It’s not yet clear what will be done to the structures as the project moves forward.

On its website, StreetLights Residential says it takes a design-centric approach to urban development, focusing on multifamily apartment homes and mixed-use developments.