Monday, Jan. 3, 2005 | 10:49 a.m.
American Nevada Company has sold four of its seven retail centers to Southern California-based Donahue Schriber, a private real estate investment trust.
The sale of about 238,000 square feet of retail space closed escrow on Thursday. The sales price was not disclosed, and the Clark County Assessor's office had not updated its Web site to reflect the sales.
"Our position was to take advantage of a very strong market for attractive, well-managed and well-situated retail properties," John Kilduff, president of American Nevada, said.
The proceeds from the sale will be reinvested into the development of commercial properties around the valley, he said. The company is looking at the development of mixed-use centers, office, other retail and residential as well as the development of new master-planned communities, Kilduff said.
American Nevada is owned by the Greenspun family, publishers of the Las Vegas Sun.
The high demand for retail in the Las Vegas market is caused by a number of factors, said Brian Gordon, a principal at research firm Applied Analysis.
"It was a very successful year for retail developers and owners that are selling product," he said. "They are achieving higher sales prices than we've historically seen."
Gordon said the valley's average capitalization rate, a center's operating income divided by its sales price, hit a 10-year low in 2004 at 7.56 percent. The lower the capitalization rate, the higher the premiums for the owner.
Las Vegas retail centers enjoyed low vacancy rates, hovering at the 4 percent mark, along with high demand from existing and new residents, Gordon said.
"Investors coming in from other areas see Las Vegas as an extremely hot market," he said.
Phillip Peckman, chief executive of the Greenspun Corporation, parent company of American Nevada, said prices for retail properties had gone so high in the Las Vegas market that the prudent thing to do was sell.
"It's a great transaction for us; we hit the market just right," he said.
The company sold Pebble Marketplace at the southeast corner of Green Valley Parkway and Pebble Road, anchored by Smith's Food and Drug; Green Valley Plaza at the southeast corner of Green Valley Ranch and Sunset Road, anchored by Trader Joe's; Paseo Verde Plaza at the southwest corner of Valle Verde Drive and Interstate 215, anchored by Smith's; and the Gateway Plaza at Valle Verde and Sunset, anchored by 7-11.
American Nevada did keep three of its centers, the new District at Green Valley Ranch at the southwest corner of Green Valley Parkway and I-215, and Green Valley Town Center and Athenian Center, both at the northeast corner of Green Valley and Sunset.
It also will continue to develop a retail center in its master-planned community of Aliante in North Las Vegas, which will be anchored by a Smith's.
Kilduff said American Nevada is working on plans for the challenged Green Valley Town Center. The two-story center has had a hard time attracting and keeping quality tenants.
"We are working on repositioning and rejuvenating that whole center," Kilduff said.
The sale gives Donahue Schriber nine properties in the Las Vegas Valley, bringing the company's square footage total to about 700,000 square feet, said Jeff Chambers, vice president of development.
"Las Vegas has been a great market for the last 10 plus years, we wish we had more property in Las Vegas," he said.
The company plans to work on leasing out vacant space in the Green Valley retail centers it purchased.
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