San Diego- based HP Investors LLC has teamed with Clarion Partners of New York to purchase the McGrath family retail portfolio in Kearny Mesa for approximately $107 million, according to the buyers and local brokers.
A statement from the buyers said the acquired properties total 294,428 square feet on 29 acres and are located along Clairemont Mesa Boulevard near Interstate 805. The deal includes the Walmart-anchored McGrath Center and takes in buildings that have not changed ownership since being developed by the McGrath family in the early 1990s.
Other tenants in the acquired buildings include Food 4 Less, LA Fitness, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Verizon and Chipotle Mexican Grill. The deal includes six single-tenant leased buildings and one retail strip building with multiple tenants, along Clairemont Mesa Boulevard at Shawline Drive.
“The timing was right for this sale and it worked for us in terms of our long-term goals,” said Laurie McGrath, President of McGrath Development Inc., in a statement from Voit Real Estate Services, which represented the seller.
“While real estate development has been challenging, fun and certainly rewarding, we have other things that we would like to accomplish,” McGrath said. “Our larger goal will be growing our (charitable) foundation as well as pursuing redevelopment of some of our other properties.”
The McGrath family has owned the land where the retail buildings sit since the late 1940s. McGrath Development broke ground in 1990 on the McGrath Center, originally planned by C.W. McGrath as a 50-acre retail and industrial mixed-use project.
It was later revised to include mostly retail uses, with one 100,000-square-foot industrial “flex” building. Brokers said the property has maintained an occupancy rate of over 97 percent since 2001 and was fully leased at the time of sale.
McGrath was represented in the sale by Voit’s Randy LaChance and Mark Caston, and the buyers represented themselves. Officials of HP Investors said the buyers have retained John Jennings and Aaron Hill of Cushman & Wakefield to market the portfolio for lease.
The purchase marked HP Investors’ seventh property acquisition in the past six months, and the second deal completed with Clarion Partners.