Walmart has acquired a Norwalk, Connecticut, shopping center for $44.5M in its third shopping center purchase this year.
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The buy is part of the retailer’s larger push to own its own real estate, CoStar News reports.
Walmart anchors the 160K SF center, which is less than 50 miles from Midtown Manhattan, with a nearly 119K SF store. It also occupies the Bethel Park Shopping Center in Pennsylvania, which sits on a nearly 22-acre lot. The company bought it May for $39.6M.
“We were in a lease agreement at Bethel Park so purchasing the property provided the best opportunity for us to serve our customers in the long-term,” Mark Rickel, Walmart director of corporate communications, told CoStar earlier this month.
Walmart was represented by Treeline Real Estate President Barry Milberg, who declined to comment to CoStar on the sale. The nation’s largest retailer also declined to comment on the Norwalk deal.
“I’m a big believer if a retailer can afford to buy the property that they’re leasing, they should go and do it,” Royal Properties Principal Jeff Kintzer, who represented seller Murray & Gaunt Partners, told CoStar. “I think over a long term, it makes a lot of business sense. I also think for a company like Walmart, why not put the money up and control your destiny?”
Walmart isn't a tenant in the Monroeville Mall, also in Pennsylvania, which it bought for $34M in February. It does, however, have big plans for the property. It has filed an application for $7.5M in state grants to demolish and redevelop the 1.2M SF mall.
The new complex would have retail, restaurant and entertainment space, including a Walmart and Sam’s Club.
If approved, the development would give Walmart access to a market it was previously denied. The retailer attempted to open a store in Monroeville in 2005 but was met with community backlash, with residents citing worries about traffic, crime and the environment.
The real estate purchases add onto a larger trend of retailers buying their own real estate. It has spanned from workaday chains like Dillard’s and Publix Super Markets to luxury fashion houses on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
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