Investor buys struggling Village Square shopping, office complex

Village Square, a 250,000-square-foot property at Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road, has been purchased by an investor in distressed real estate.

An investor in distressed real estate has purchased the struggling Village Square shopping and office complex in western Las Vegas and is promising to revitalize it.

Westport Capital Partners LLC, which has offices in El Segundo, Calif., and Wilton, Conn., on Wednesday announced the purchase of Village Square at Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road.

Terms were not disclosed, but Westport likely purchased the 250,000-square-foot property at a fraction of its development cost.

Struggling with vacancies like other centers around Las Vegas during the recession, the Regal Cinemas-anchored Village Square was appraised this summer at just $18.1 million — down from $74.6 million in 2006 during the height of the economic boom.

Investors in the debt of the property took possession of it after its owner, Triple Five Nevada Development Corp., defaulted on its $59.7 million mortgage in 2009. Since taking over Village Square, a special servicer for the investors has been running it and marketing it for sale.

In a statement today, Westport Capital suggested Village Square has a bright future, despite its troubles in recent years.

“The center serves the Summerlin and Peccole Ranch master planned communities in northwest Las Vegas,” Westport said in a statement.

“The property is home to several established businesses that serve the affluent Summerlin community. We will immediately implement an aggressive leasing and marketing program along with property upgrades and enhancements that will soon establish Village Square as the premier retail and office complex in this market,” Scott Chernoff, a principal at Westport, said in a statement.

“We believe that well-selected Las Vegas real estate offers a promising opportunity and we see this property as a good fit with the firm’s opportunistic investment philosophy. This center is located at one of the city’s premier intersections and is well positioned to thrive under our stable ownership and management expertise,” Russel Bernard, managing principal at Westport, said in a statement.

This is at least the second Las Vegas-area shopping center to be sold in the past month.

Vestar Development of Phoenix and Rockwood Capital of New York announced Nov. 1 they had purchased the 384,170-square-foot District at Green Valley Ranch in Henderson for $79 million.

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