A city block-sized retail and office development in Downtown Los Angeles has hit the market. Its sale will say a lot about demand for these uses in DTLA.

National Real Estate Advisors is selling The Bloc, which features 420K SF of retail including apparel retailer Uniqlo and an Alamo Drafthouse, 730K SF of Class-A office space in a 33-story tower, and a parking structure with nearly 2,000 stalls.

“Now that sales transactions are once again becoming the norm in Downtown LA and closed sales are establishing clear price points, buyers can finally underwrite against defensible and quantifiable market evidence,” Cushman & Wakefield Executive Vice Chairman Mike Condon said in a statement. Condon and Vice Chairman Kevin Donner are marketing the property for the owner, National Real Estate Advisors.

Condon told the Los Angeles Times that the vacant Macy's building presented an advantage for potential buyers.

“That vacancy is where a lot of the value for the project will be derived,” he told the Times. “That’s the big opportunity.”

The Bloc is a Downtown mainstay. It was renovated in the aughts in a process that removed its roof, added more restaurants along the perimeter, and made it an open-air shopping center that hosts events on a central lawn. The developer behind the changes, Wayne Ratkovich of Ratkovich Co., sold his stake in the property to his partner, NREA, in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.

“The Bloc is now positioned to become a highly successful investment and an epicenter for DTLA’s revitalization,” said Jeff Kanne, president and CEO of National Real Estate Advisors, in a statement at the time.

Downtown's upward trajectory was knocked off course by the pandemic, and the neighborhood is still working to rebound. As other submarkets around the city have regained their footing, Downtown is, for many investors and owners, still viewed as a challenged market.

The team selling the Bloc says the tide is turning.

“We're seeing capital come back to Downtown LA — not just opportunistic, bargain hunting buyers, but owner-users, public agencies, and long-term institutional and high net worth holders who look to execute a typical value add business plan," Condon said in a statement. "That's a meaningfully different buyer pool than we saw even twelve months ago.”

A real estate source estimated that the office and retail portion of the property is worth about $160M, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Bloc's hotel, the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles, is also for sale but is being marketed by a separate team.