I N V E S T M E N T    S A L E S

JLP makes its second major retail purchase in Hampton Roads with Lynnhaven East Shopping Center and North Mall Shoppes in Virginia Beach.

DRE Completes Significant Investment Sales Transactions in Virginia

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA — The national commercial real estate investment market has performed very well over the past several years, and Hampton Roads is no exception. Cap rates have reached historic lows for office and retail investment properties. Divaris Real Estate, Inc. (DRE) has been active in the investment market, recently closing three major deals in Hampton Roads.

“Hampton Roads is certainly on the radar for a number of national investors; this is a unique market compared to many other parts of the country,” says Alex Divaris, associate, Investment Sales. “This market is quite stable, without the major ups and downs that many markets experience; with the presence of the military, there will always be consumers here to shop and people needing places to live and work.”

Divaris and Jason Oliver, also an associate in DRE’s Investment Sales Group, recently brokered the sale of Lynnhaven East Shopping Center and North Mall Shoppes. These adjacent shopping centers are located in Virginia Beach, next to Lynnhaven Mall, Hampton Roads’ dominant super-regional mall. JLP-Lynnhaven VA, LLC purchased the properties from REBA Associates, Inc. for $11.8 million.

“This deal was relatively unique because it was an off-market transaction, a one-shot deal from seller to buyer directly with DRE introducing the parties,” says Divaris. Lynnhaven East is anchored by Toys ‘R Us and OfficeMax, while North Mall Shoppes is a smaller, unanchored strip center with prime frontage on Lynnhaven Parkway. Together, the two properties encompass 106,657 square feet.

This is JLP’s second major acquisition in Hampton Roads; the group purchased Crossways Shopping Center in Chesapeake for $26.4 million in 2000, in a deal also brokered by DRE’s Investment Sales Group. DRE handles the leasing for each of the three properties.

Also in Virginia Beach, Divaris, Oliver and Vivian Turok, senior vice president of DRE’s Office Sales and Leasing Division, represented Kamarek Group LLC in its sale of 361 Southport Circle, a 16,000-square-foot office building in Virginia Beach. Continental Properties Corporation purchased the building, which was vacant at the time of the transaction, for $2.06 million. The buyer plans to occupy the second floor for its headquarters operations and will be leasing out the first floor. The property was under contract in less than two weeks due to its central location in a well-leased office park, with close proximity to Interstate 264 and The Town Center of Virginia Beach.

Continental Properties purchased 361 Southport Circle for $2.06 million. Divaris represented Kamarek Group in the sale that took less than two weeks.

DRE’s Investment Sales Group also brokered a triple-net deal: a retail building located in Virginia Beach, occupied by Merchant’s Tire and Auto Center under a long-term lease agreement. Wynnewood Associates LLP purchased the property from The Holt Family Trust for $2.1 million, or $300 per square foot. The property is well-located in a strong retail corridor with good demographics, and surrounded by well-established, upscale neighborhoods. DRE represented the seller in the transaction.

“We were pleased to complete this transaction because triple-net deals have been an area of focus for us,” says Oliver. “As for the 361 Southport Circle sale, we were proud to be able to facilitate a sale that replaced one established Hampton Roads firm’s headquarters with another, long-standing local company’s operations.”

DRE’s Investment Sales Group remains active in the investment sales arena; the team is currently listing over 500,000 square feet of investment properties, which include an office/flex campus, a medical office building and a hotel in downtown Norfolk. In addition, the Investment Sales Group is constantly working with a number of regional and national investors looking to acquire properties in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.