Chesterfield Towne Center to be sold

Chesterfield Towne Center, a 1.2 million-square-foot enclosed mall in Chesterfield County, is under contract to be sold to New-York based Rouse Properties.

The mall is part of a $292.5 million deal between Rouse and California-based real estate investment trust Macerich to buy two of Macerich’s properties, with the other one a mall located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Macerich also owns Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia and the Valley Mall in Harrisonburg.

Rouse Properties said in a statement Monday, “We are under contract to acquire Chesterfield Towne Center in Richmond, Va.  and the Centre at Salisbury in Salisbury, Md., and look forward to making our entry into these states. Each mall operates as the premier retail destination in its respective region and will serve as welcome additions to our growing portfolio of regional enclosed malls. Because we are under a strict confidentiality agreement with the seller we are unable to provide additional details at this time.”

According to a presentation prepared for investors, Macerich has been disposing of some of its assets in 2013 to generate equity.
Macerich said it is currently under contract to sell four assets totaling about $318 million.

Built in 1975 and renovated several times since, Chesterfield Towne Center produced sales of about $361 per square foot, with a nearly 92 percent occupancy, as of Dec. 31 according to Macerich. Anchor tenants include Macy’s, Sears, J. C. Penney and a combination T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods store.

Rouse’s presentation to investors shed some light on why it considers the mall a good buy.
Big-box retailers are continuing to move into malls, the company said, and Rouse looks for malls that offer high traffic and sales. 

Eighty percent of its mall properties, including Chesterfield Towne Center, are single-story assets, which provide flexibility for changing the mall’s gross leasable area.

Rouse also noted that the Chesterfield Mall is located in an affluent submarket in Midlothian off Huguenot Road and Midlothian Turnpike. According to Rouse, the average household income in a five-mile radius is $101,160, and the mall serves a trade area of more than 550,000 people.