Palm Beach-based Sterling Organization stabilized and sold an Orlando-area shopping center for $72.75 million, or $45.1 million more than its acquisition price.
A “textbook repositioning” of the shopping center more than doubled its net operating income, Brian Kosoy, managing principal, president and chief executive officer of Sterling Organization, said in a prepared statement.
Sterling sold the 244,977-square-foot Center of Winter Park with a 97 percent occupancy rate to AEW Capital Management.
Sterling paid $27.65 million for the shopping center, located in Winter Park at the intersection of Lee Road and Orlando Avenue, 4.5 miles from downtown Orlando.
Sterling’s value-add institutional fund, Sterling Value Add Partners, LP (SVAP), acquired the shopping center in 2013.
The SVAP fund is fully allocated and now owns six assets in four markets totaling approximately 2.7 million square feet of gross leasable area.
In 2014, former anchor tenant Kmart closed its department store at Center of Winter Park.
Sterling subsequently refilled the former Kmart space with single-tenant stores operated by Ross Dress for Less and DSW and a combination store operated by HomeGoods and Marshalls.
Five Below, a discount retailer to teenagers, opened a store in what had been Kmart’s garden center at Center of Winter Park.
Sterling also improved the shopping center’s façades, landscaping, lighting, parking lot and signage.
The Palm Beach-based private equity investment firm negotiated lease extensions with LA Fitness and Michaels and new leases with such tenants as Blaze Pizza, Great Clips, MetroPCS, Petco, Stretch Zone, Tropical Smoothie Cafe and Zoës Kitchen. – Mike Seemuth