How much for Bellingham’s Sunset Square? Here’s what an investment firm paid
A regional shopping center was sold in what is one of Bellingham’s biggest property transactions.
Sunset Square, which has 378,000 square feet of retail space, was sold for $53 million, according to a Wednesday, Jan. 19, news release from the commercial real estate brokerage CPX, which handled the deal for the buyer and seller.
The buyer is Tourmaline Capital Fund LP, which is based in San Diego. The seller was PK II Sunset Square LLC. According to the Washington Secretary of State’s website, the governor of the PK II Sunset Square LLC is Glenn G. Cohen, who is associated with Kimco Realty Corp., which handled the management of the shopping center. Kimco is a real estate investment trust headquartered in Jericho, N.Y., according to its website.
Sean Tufts, CPX managing partner, said in an email that the new owner has no major changes planned “besides operating as normal and continuing to improve the success of the center over time.”
“Sunset Square presented a unique opportunity to acquire a highly successful Safeway-anchored regional shopping center,” Tufts said in a news release. “The offering attracted a wide variety of capital sources searching for strong-performing retail assets outside of core markets.”
Ryan Martin, co-owner of Pacific Continental Realty in Bellingham, said his first reaction about the sale is that the buyer got a good deal, given the typical lease rates around the area. While not involved in this transaction, Martin is familiar with the property itself.
Martin noted that the vacancy rate is around 8%, which he said is typical for a shopping center of this size. He believes the location is great, but the traffic flow within the center could be improved with some design changes.
Sunset Square includes a variety of tenants, including OfficeMax, Taco Bell and Starbucks. The biggest tenant is At Home, which has nearly 104,000 square feet of space. The Safeway store occupies about 67,000 square feet, according to the Kimco Realty website.
In recent years other Bellingham shopping center sales include the Cordata Center, which includes Best Buy, Sierra Trading Post and Hobby Lobby as tenants for $22.5 million in 2018. Also selling in 2018 was Meridian Village, which includes Marshalls as a tenant, for $18 million.
While investments in retail centers took a hit at the beginning of the pandemic, activity has bounced back extremely well, Tufts said, adding that both values and activity are now above pre-COVID levels.
This story was originally published January 20, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
