Another high-end retail outlet in Charlotte will carry the Simon brand. 

Simon Property Group has acquired the Phillips Place mall in the SouthPark neighborhood of Charlotte, according to a press release.

Phillips Place is a 134K SF, mixed-use, open-air retail center with more than 25 retail shops and restaurants, a 180-plus-room hotel and a multifamily residential property on the grounds.

Simon, a retail REIT that owns over 90 malls in the United States, paid $144.8M for Phillips Place, Charlotte Business Journal reported.

Phillips Place sits on 15.4 acres and was Charlotte’s first mixed-use development when it opened in 1997, CBJ reported.

Berkeley Capital Advisors listed the shopping plaza this past July, marking it as 95 percent leased and noting that the three most recent leases rented at an average of $100 per SF.

Big retail names at the shopping center include Ralph Lauren, Peter Millar and J. Crew.

With the sale, Simon now has five malls and retail outlets in the Charlotte area, including the nearby SouthPark mall, the city’s largest. This comes as Charlotte is seeing a surge of new retail and restaurant openings across its malls. 

The company’s acquisition of Phillips Place comes at a time when quality malls have been making a comeback in the United States following the retail slowdown at the height of the pandemic. 

Nationally, retail foot traffic recovered to prepandemic levels by Q3 2024 and this year is projected to surpass 2019 volumes, according to CBRE’s 2025 U.S. Retail Market Outlook.

Nuveen appointed Chad Phillips as its new Global Head of Nuveen Real Estate, effective immediately.

Courtesy of Nuveen

Chad Phillips joined Nuveen in 2019 and has led multisector fundraising and management teams.

Phillips now oversees a $141B portfolio of assets under management spanning 22 countries, according to Nuveen, the investment manager of pension fund and financial giant Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. 

He’s taking over at a time when Nuveen sees potential value in commercial real estate.  

“The painful reset of private real estate seems to be in the rearview mirror, and we expect 2025 to be a good vintage for real estate investment,” analysts at Nuveen Global Cities REIT wrote in a Dec. 31 report. “Values have stabilized, total returns are positive in most markets and the dearth of new construction activity bodes well for medium-term fundamentals.”

Phillips is replacing Chris McGibbon, a 25-year industry veteran who had been in the role since 2016 and now plans to retire. Phillips will also chair the Nuveen Real Estate Global Executive Leadership Team, which oversees the firm’s strategic initiatives. 

He first joined Nuveen in 2019 and was most recently responsible for leading investment and fundraising teams across the office, healthcare, retail and mixed-use sectors. Phillips earned his undergraduate degree from Davidson College in North Carolina and a master’s degree in real estate from Georgetown University. 

Phillips will lead the department from Nuveen’s office in Charlotte. The investment manager is based in Chicago and also has a major presence in New York, where TIAA is based, a spokesperson told CoStar. 

McGibbon will stay on until June 30 to ensure a smooth transition. 

Commercial real estate transaction volume is broadly expected to pick up in 2025 as investors, owners and lenders previously frozen by hopes of better underwriting accept today’s tough market conditions are likely to persist, especially in light of President Donald Trump’s new trade policies and tariffs. 

Global brokerage firm executives expect growing transaction volume, which is expected to pick up in the back half of the year before gaining more traction in 2026, will boost their bottom lines. And the recent sell-off across the stock market has not only been less painful for commercial real estate stocks compared to other sectors, it also has made the asset class a more attractive investment.

“We think investors should have exposure to real estate stocks,” analysts at J.P. Morgan wrote in a recent note to investors. 

Nat Heald, Jeffrey Dunne and David Gavin of CBRE’s National Retail Partners represented DRA Advisors and KPR Centers in the sale of Bethel Shopping Center at 83 Stony Hill Rd. in Bethel, CT. CBRE also procured the buyer, Phillips Edison & Company. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Located in an affluent Fairfield County market, Bethel Shopping Center is a 101,105-square-foot, 91% leased center anchored by Big Y Supermarket, Starbucks and Dollar Tree. Its tenant roster also includes Great Clips, Quest Diagnostics and Casa Tequila.

In a statement, CBRE’s National Retail Partners said, “The center’s attractive rent roll, strong grocery anchor and long-term leases provide highly stable income with further upside opportunity through lease-up of the well-positioned pad along Route 6. We continue to see tremendous demand for grocery-anchored properties across the country, with limited supply to meet the magnitude of current investor demand.”