H&R Block, Panda Express, Farmers Insurance, and Little Caesars have a new owner at Peoria Marketplace. CBRE's Steve Julius (here on a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro for the World Cup) and Jesse Goldsmith tell us they've sold the 26k SF shopping center on West Cactus Road for $5.1M to California-based Barstow Shopping Centers. Jesse says the property was 91% leased. But there's still upside since it's shadow-anchored by Lee Lee International Supermarket. (Meanwhile, we're hiding in the shadows at Lee Lee, so nobody sees us buy four pints of Ben & Jerry's.)

There's about 3,000 SF of vacant space at Peoria Marketplace (above) at a time when vacancies in that market are below 10%. And with rents creeping up, that gives Barstow some footing for increasing rents. Steve tells us the market for strip retail is still very much on the radar of individual investors versus institutional ones. He now has Miller Marketplace, a strip center in Buckeye, out for sale for $3.7M.