Westfield Santa Anita sells for $537.5 million, the biggest mall sale in years

Westfield Santa Anita has modified fingers in probably the most costly mall gross sales in years as its Paris-based proprietor strikes to unload its U.S. properties and retrench in Europe.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield offered the massive indoor buying middle in Arcadia for $537.5 million, the French mall firm stated.

It was the very best value paid for a U.S. mall since 2018, in keeping with actual property funding financial institution Eastdil Secured, which suggested Unibail-Rodamco within the sale. That yr, actual property large Brookfield offered a 49% stake in Trend Place close to Salt Lake Metropolis for $594 million, which Brookfield’s actual property chief informed traders “was a really wholesome value.”

The identification of the Arcadia mall purchaser was not disclosed, however Unibail-Radamco stated the brand new proprietor “is a longtime industrial actual property investor who owns different retail property in Southern California.”

Promoting the mall close to the famed Santa Anita Park horse-racing venue was a part of Unibail-Rodamco’s deliberate “radical discount of its monetary publicity within the U.S.,” the corporate stated.

The proprietor of Westfield malls, acquainted to passersby for many years for his or her bright-red emblem indicators, stated in April it might promote all its properties within the U.S. and guess its future on Europe, the place it’s the largest proprietor of buying facilities.

All 24 U.S. malls are to be offered by 2023, Chief Govt Jean-Marie Tritant informed traders on the time. The corporate will turn into a “targeted, European pure-play,” he stated.

Westfield Santa Anita was extensively thought to be one of many crown jewels of the Westfield chain. The 1.5-million-square-foot property on Baldwin Avenue is 96% leased, with gross sales of greater than $600 per sq. foot on an annualized foundation, Eastdil stated, a measure of profitable mall exercise.

Different high-profile Los Angeles-area properties within the chain embody Westfield Century Metropolis and Westfield Topanga & the Village in Warner Middle.

Westfield Santa Anita has 23 buildings and was accomplished in phases between 1974 and 2009, actual property knowledge supplier CoStar stated. Present tenants embody Nordstrom, Zara, Lululemon, Macy’s and H&M.

“This transaction bodes effectively for the mall business as an entire because it additional demonstrates the personal capital market’s recognition of the numerous enchancment within the sector’s operational efficiency,” Chris Hoffmann, managing director of Eastdil, stated in a press release.