The Sigmund Companies (TSC) and Broadview Real Estate Partners acquired Groton Shoppers Mart, a 171,858-square-foot open-air, grocery-anchored shopping center at 955 Poquonnock Rd. in Groton, CT. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Owned and operated by a private investor since construction in 1961, Groton Shoppers Mart is anchored by national convenience and necessity-oriented retailers, including Big Y, CVS Pharmacy, Chase Bank, Starbucks and others.

TSC will operate the property in a joint venture with Broadview. Atlantic Capital Partners represented the owner in the sale, and Atlantic Retail will handle the leasing and management.

“As an established epicenter in a growing New England community, Groton Shoppers Mart aligns with our thematic open value strategy, which targets convenience and necessity retail in need of strategic intervention across the United States, and will be provided with the expertise and capital to fortify the center’s long-standing legacy,” said D. Wright Sigmund, TSC managing partner.

Marcus & Millichap closed the sale of North County Oral & Facial Surgery Center, an 11,400-square-foot single-tenant net-leased medical/surgery office located at 839 E. Grand Ave. in Escondido. The asset sold for $6,150,000.

“The property was held in a partnership, and they wanted to monetize and invest separately,” said Ryan Gonzales, first VP investments in Marcus & Millichap’s San Diego Del Mar office. “The property was widely marketed and drew several offers. The buyers plan to occupy the building and use it as the flagship location of their advanced dental and maxiofacial surgery center.”

Gonzales marketed the property on behalf of the seller, NCOFSC, LLC. The buyer, 839 E Grand, LLC, was also procured by Gonzales. Conor Brennan, SVP investments in the San Diego Downtown office, introduced the seller and provided transaction support.

The JCAHO-compliant ambulatory surgery center is the largest private surgery center in North San Diego County, according to Marcus & Millichap.

CBRE’s Capital Markets team in San Francisco arranged the sale of 410 Townsend St., a four-story, 78,000-square-foot office building in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) submarket. The property was formerly a hub for early-stage tech startups such as Eventbrite and Zendesk.

New York Life Real Estate Investors (NYLREI) and Bridgeton, a vertically integrated real estate investment firm, purchased the property for $22 million. The sale price represented a substantial discount on the nearly $86 million that Clarion Partners paid in 2019, according to published reports. NYLREI and Bridgeton were represented by Mike Taquino and Kyle Kovac of CBRE.

Although CBRE didn’t identify the seller, the San Francisco Business Times reported that Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Company, once the building’s lender, took ownership of 410 Townsend after Clarion handed over the property last December. By that time, occupancy had declined to around 25%.

“It’s our opinion that this is the start of the recovery for the San Francisco real estate market and 410 Townsend provides us with the opportunity to acquire a best-in-class creative brick and beam office asset well below replacement cost and where the asset traded in 2013 and 2019,” said Albert Pura, senior director of transactions for NYLREI.

Leaders From Rialto Capital Management, AEW, CIM, Rexford Industrial, EQR and Cushman & Wakefield come together on the Capital Markets panel at Connect Los Angeles 2024 on May 1 at the InterContinental in DTLA. Register now to hear from these industry experts and more. 

Two big players in life sciences investing and development, Charlotte-based Trinity Capital Advisors and California-based Foundation Capital Ventures, are seeking to expand nationally and work together on projects.

Courtesy of Hanbury Architecture

A rendering of Spark LS, a $1B life sciences campus planned for the Research Triangle.

The partnership, known as Foundation, will be led by Trinity Managing Partners Denis Sullivan, Scott Altick, Walker Collier and Jeff Sheehan. Significant focus will be placed on recapitalizing existing assets, Sullivan said. Trinity was a significant buyer of defaulted loans during the Global Financial Crisis.

The two firms first collaborated on Park Point LP in Durham, North Carolina, and Spark LS, a $1B, 109-acre mixed-use life sciences campus in the Research Triangle Park region. Trinity had seen success in the RTP market, Sheehan said, and began looking for a partner to make a move to go national. 

Trinity boasts a 3M SF portfolio in the Research Triangle, including the 911K SF Southport Innovation Center in Morrisville, North Carolina, and the 265K SF Venable Center in downtown Durham.

Sheehan said he sees opportunity in utilizing the firms’ combined relationships with tenants. It would be an obvious move to help those doing research and development in the three biggest life sciences markets find space to commercialize and expand in North Carolina, taking advantage of the region’s biomanufacturing strength. 

“We’re also really excited about the amount of early stage research that is coming to North Carolina, acknowledging the skilled workforce that’s available,” said Sullivan, a former BioMed Realty chief investment officer.

But while there are opportunities in this environment, it is important to be selective.

“We think that going forward, you’re really going to have to be a stock picker, in terms of which projects you select,” Sullivan said. “And we really see a value in having a proven track record as an operator from both a tenant and a lender perspective.”