September 17, 2024

Continental Realty Corporation Enters Utah Retail Market With Acquisition Of The Crossroads Of Taylorsville

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BALTIMORE, MD (September 17, 2024) – Continental Realty Corporation (CRC), a Baltimore-based real estate investment and management company active in 12 states with more than $4 billion of Assets Under Management (AUM), has entered the Utah retail market with its acquisition of The Crossroads of Taylorsville, a nearly 630,000 square foot super regional shopping center positioned 12 miles south of Salt Lake City in Taylorsville. Located at 5400 S Redwood Road, the center is anchored by national retailers including Target, T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods, Ross Dress for Less, EOS Fitness, Regal Cinema, and PetSmart, and was approximately 94 percent leased at the time of the sales transaction. Mark Damiani of Eastdil Secured represented the seller, TriGate Capital, LLC. CRC has now acquired more than $700 million worth of retail real estate since the beginning of 2021.

The Crossroads of Taylorsville was purchased with funds from Continental Realty Opportunistic Retail Fund I, LP (CRORF), a closed-end fund for which approximately $323 million has been raised. Since the inception of CRORF in 2021, CRC has acquired 14 retail properties comprising of approximately 3.5 million square feet of space. Since 2012, CRC has raised nearly $1 billion in equity for retail and multifamily investments across five real estate funds and multiple associated co-investments.

“We consider The Crossroads of Taylorsville to be the dominant retail venue serving the Belt Route/Interstate 215 corridor, given the strength of its roster of more than 30 national retailers and restaurants among its more than 60 tenants, the continued robust growth of the nearby commercial office and residential sectors, and its positioning at the busiest intersection in the state of Utah,” said Josh Dinstein, CRC’s Senior Vice President, Acquisitions. “This high-profile regional supercenter aligns perfectly with our mission to acquire strategically-located assets offering significant upside potential in sections of the country exhibiting economic vitality and sustained population and job growth. The Crossroads of Taylorsville is the perfect acquisition for our entry into the Utah marketplace given its prominence, strong tenant base, and regional visibility.”

Dual grocery-anchored center features unprecedented recent leasing activity

Delivered in 1982 and located along the Belt Route/Interstate 215 corridor on a more than 75-acre site, The Crossroads of Taylorsville features two grocery anchors in Target and Harmon’s Grocery as a shadow anchor, and a mix of more than 60 restaurants and retailers representing the apparel, health and fitness, pet, financial and professional services, and food categories, including a diverse selection of sit-down, fast-casual and quick serve restaurants. Selected tenants include Dollar Tree, EOS Fitness, Guitar Center, King Buffet, Lifetime Products, Mr. Mac, Rockler Woodworking, and Sierra Trading Post.

The property includes 10 buildings and 7 separate outparcels or multi-tenanted strip buildings, and is surrounded by a free surface parking lot which can accommodate nearly 3,900 vehicles. The site also features numerous access and egress points and three signalized intersections on S. Redwood Road, including a direct entrance off the I-215 exit ramp and 4,000 feet of frontage along Interstate 215 and Redwood Road.

Nearly 420,000 people, including more than 53,000 households with an average household income of more than $96,000, reside within a five-mile radius of The Crossroads of Taylorsville, and an additional 91,000 people work within five miles of the regional shopping center. The center draws consumers from an expanded 15-mile trade area capturing nearly 270,000 households which spend approximately $30,000 annually at retail stores throughout Salt Lake City.

Near-term mark-to-market opportunities present substantial upside potential

Over the past year, more than 75,000 square feet of new leases and lease renewals have been executed at The Crossroads of Taylorsville. According to Dinstein, the opportunity to add value by capitalizing on proven tenant demand in one of the country’s fastest growing markets was a compelling reason fueling CRC’s interest. The property draws more than seven million visitors annually, ranking it in the 97^th percentile of all Utah shopping centers in annual visits, according to market research company Placer.ai.

“CRC’s leasing team intends to take advantage of the nearly 40,000 square feet of existing vacancies, as well as the upcoming lease renewals to further strengthen and diversify the tenant mix with new additions intended to capture the imagination of regional consumers,” Dinstein said.

Enduring Salt Lake City fundamentals forecasted to grow local economy by 20 percent

More than 1.3 million people, including more than 440,000 households, reside within the Salt Lake City metropolitan region, with a population growth of nearly 18 percent since 2010. According to Claritas, a third-party data collection and analytics company, the population is expected to increase an additional 3.1 percent over the next five years. The average household income in Salt Lake City is $117,000 and more than 38,000 homes were added to the area between 2020 and 2023. In addition, 14,190 new jobs were added over that same period. Area wages have grown 53 percent over the past decade.

The economy of the greater metropolitan Salt Lake City area is expected to expand by an additional 20.4 percent over the next five years, fueled by continued expansion of the technology, finance and banking, healthcare, education, logistics, manufacturing, and tourism industries. Local companies leading the way with hiring new employees include Centura Health, Delta Airlines, Fidelity, Northrop Grumman, Morgan Stanley, and Tesla.

More than 6,000 high technology and software companies operate in the Salt Lake City and Provo markets and Goldman Sachs’ second largest office in North America, employing more than 2,500 workers, is located in downtown Salt Lake City. Zions Bancorporation, the area’s largest financial company, employs more than 3,500 people.

Strategic location near Salt Lake City economic drivers and transportation hubs

The Crossroads of Taylorsville is situated adjacent to interstates 15 and 215, the major north-south highways in the greater Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The regional power center is located 12 miles from downtown Salt Lake City and Salt Lake City International Airport, and less than 20 minutes from the University of Utah and its nearly 35,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The property is located at the intersection of two Utah Transit Authority bus routes, providing connections to every local rail line, including the TRAX light rail and the FrontRunner commuter rail systems.

Summary of CRORF acquisition activity

“Our team has been tracking the sustained growth and expansion of the greater Salt Lake City economy for some time, and we believe few regions around the country can match its more than 90 percent growth since 2010,” said CRC’s CEO, JM Schapiro. “We are entering this market with full confidence in the area’s long-term fundamentals and vitality, based on the continued job and population growths, high barriers to entry for new retail product and relative low cost of living compared to other major metropolitan areas. Acquiring The Crossroads of Taylorsville as our entry point into the Utah market enables us to execute our strategic plan to add value and deliver a solid risk-adjusted yield to our investor group. We intend to capitalize on the existing tenant mix, as we bring the asset to full occupancy.

“This acquisition was made possible by the efforts of CRC’s vertically integrated platform, which was able to identify the opportunity by leveraging our industry relationships, and properly analyze the asset by leveraging market-leading, cutting-edge data and metrics analysis,” Schapiro continued. “CRC continues to invest resources into our internal processes, because they clearly pay significant dividends to our investors and differentiate CRC from peer group competitors. We intend to remain aggressive in our approach to identifying and acquiring our next set of assets in the greater Salt Lake City market.”

CRC purchased two properties last year on behalf of CRORF totaling nearly $190 million and approximately 750,000 square feet of space. This activity included the $78 million acquisition of Lakeside Village, a nearly 460,000 square foot super-regional lifestyle center located just east of Tampa, Florida, and the $110 million purchase of South Coast Collection (SoCo) a 292,000 square foot luxury home furnishing and design lifestyle center in Costa Mesa, California.

Prior to its 2023 entry into southern California, CRC expanded into the suburban trade areas of Chicago, Illinois, and Troy, Michigan, in 2021. This expansion included a portfolio of five shopping centers comprising more than 900,000 square feet of space in Cicero, Mount Prospect, Naperville, and Palatine, Illinois, as well as the Oakland Plaza and Oakland Square shopping centers in Troy, Michigan, which together consist of nearly 392,000 square feet of space. Other key acquisitions included Banks Crossing, a 255,101 square foot regional shopping center in Fayetteville, Georgia, and The Shoppes at Webb Gin, a 330,000 square foot lifestyle center in Greater Atlanta.

CRORF targets neighborhood, grocery-anchored, lifestyle and power centers situated within the U.S.’s top 50 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), as well as select secondary markets.

Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland and founded in 1960, Continental Realty Corporation is a full-service commercial real estate and investment company focused on acquiring and operating retail and multifamily properties. The privately held firm owns and manages a diversified portfolio of retail centers consisting of more than eight million square feet of commercial space and over 9,000 apartment homes across 12 states, with a portfolio value exceeding $4 billion. For additional information, visit www.crcrealty.com.