Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

Tag: commercial real estate

Buc-ee’s buys land for second Va. location

A second Buc-ee’s Super Center is coming to Virginia along a busy stretch of highway in Shenandoah Valley near Mount Crawford.

Buc-ee’s Mt. Crawford LLC purchased 21.3 acres located at the intersection of Interstate 81 and Friedens Church Road in Rockingham County from Lispen LLC for $6.6 million, Norfolk-based S.L Nusbaum Realty announced Tuesday.  Plans for the new location were revealed in July when the county posted on its Facebook page that the Texas-based travel center chain had applied for a special-use permit for review and approval of a sign plan.

The location follows another already planned for New Kent County. Buc-ee’s purchased the property for the New Kent County location, expected to open by 2025, in June.

Just like the New Kent location, the Buc-ee’s in Rockingham will feature up to 75,000 square feet of retail space, 120 fueling positions, electric vehicle chargers and parking for more 650 vehicles, including buses.

The Virginia locations are expected to be among the chain’s largest. A total of four centers are planned throughout the state.

S.L. Nusbaum Senior Vice President and Regional Director Nathan Shor and Vice President Larry Agnew represented the buyer in the transaction. Shor is Nathan Buc-ee’s exclusive real estate rep in Virginia.

Founded in 1982 in Lake Jackson, Texas, Buc-ee’s opened its first Texas-sized interstate travel center in 2003 and has since expanded to nearly 60 locations throughout the South.

Henrico shopping center sells for $18.4M

Merchant’s Walk Shopping Center in Henrico County has sold for $18.4 million.

Qi Lin, a local investor who in 2022 purchased the Southpark shopping center in Chesterfield County for $5.4 million, purchased Merchant’s Walk, according to Divaris Real Estate. Located at 7580 W. Broad St., Merchant’s Walk is at the intersection of West Broad Street and Wistar Roads in Henrico’s West End.

The 219,972-square-foot shopping center features 38 retail stores, including anchor tenants Food Lion, AutoZone and a Joann Fabrics and Crafts store. In addition to brokering the sale, Divaris Real Estate will also handle leasing, and Divaris Property Management Corp. will take on property management responsibilities for the 20-acre property.

“A recurring customer is one of the most rewarding parts of the job,” John Madures, a senior vice president for Divaris Real Estate who facilitated the sale, said in a statement. “It has been exciting to be a part of growing this investment portfolio for our buyer, and we are proud to have been selected to lease and manage this property as well.”

Merchant’s Walk has a 97% occupancy rate and had 2.2 million visitors in the last year. Future plans for the shopping center include improvements to the parking lot, landscaping enhancements and new roofing.  Two smaller retail sites are currently available for lease.

Madures is also assisting Lin in the sale of the 7,153-square-foot Broad Rock strip mall on Walmsley Boulevard in South Richmond. Built in 1965, that property’s tenants include Little Caesars and Allied Cash Advance. Additional information about the sale was not immediately available.

John Owendoff of Cushman & Wakefield and Catharine Spangler of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer represented the seller, an affiliate of Hackney Real Estate Partners.

Glen Allen shopping center sells for $9.5M

A shopping center anchored by a Michaels craft store in Glen Allen sold for $9.5 million, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced.

Airport Hotel LLC, of Ellicott City, Maryland, bought Broad Street Plaza, located at 9856-9864 W. Broad St. in Henrico County, on Sept. 12. The four-tenant retail center is 100% leased and includes a Kids Empire, which recently signed a 10-year lease.

Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group represented seller Sledd Properties in the sale.

Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer hire Richmond VP

Brian Felton has joined Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Richmond office as a first vice president focused on industrial sales and leasing, the real estate firm announced Tuesday.

Felton was previously a senior leasing manager with San Francisco-based Prologis, where he oversaw a 3.6 million-square-foot portfolio of industrial buildings in Richmond, Norfolk and Fredericksburg. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was based in Richmond.

“We are pleased to have Brian join our team,” Eric Robison, an executive vice president with Thalhimer, said in a statement. “His wealth of experience both in the Richmond market and working with institutional industrial owners will benefit our clients.”

Before joining Prologis, Felton worked for 14 years as senior director of leasing and development at Liberty Property Trust, which was acquired by Prologis in 2020. Felton has negotiated leases or contracts with various companies, including Home Depot, Amazon.com and Tredegar, according to a news release.

Felton has a bachelor’s degree in physical geography and minored in business administration and management at East Carolina University.

Real Estate 2023: LOUIS S. ‘LOU’ HADDAD

Haddad joined Armada Hoffler as an on-site construction superintendent in 1985. After several promotions, he was named president of Armada Hoffler Construction Co. in 1987, at age 29. In 1996, he was promoted to president of the parent company, and nearly 15 years after joining Armada Hoffler, he became the company’s CEO in 1999. He then led Armada Hoffler’s 2013 transition to becoming a publicly traded company.

Since then, the real estate investment trust has increased its property holdings to 51 large-scale commercial assets and developed over $800 million of new projects. It has operations across seven mid-Atlantic states. Armada Hoffler has participated in more than 25 public-private partnerships, including its flagship local project, the Town Center of Virginia Beach.

Haddad and wife, Mary, founded the Louis & Mary Haddad Foundation in 1999 to improve the lives of disadvantaged and at-risk children. Haddad has also been active with the American Heart Association, Special Olympics and the March of Dimes.

Hazelwood Farms is set to become industrial park

A 328-acre former James City County farm is set to become the largest speculative industrial project along the Interstate 64 corridor between the Port of Virginia and Richmond. 

Hazelwood Farms was purchased for $12 million in April by Houston-based industrial real estate firm Lovett Industrial, which plans to develop a 2.2 million-square-foot business park on the site with Class A industrial facilities for manufacturers, importers, and warehousing and distribution companies. Multiple buildings will be constructed, ranging from 100,000 square feet to 1 million square feet. Twenty acres will be set aside for future commercial and retail development. Currently in the permitting process, the project is slated to begin construction on its first phase in early 2024. The project’s working name is Enterprise Logistics Park.

Rapid growth at the Port of Virginia, along with the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel expansion and the widening of Interstate 64 between Williamsburg and Richmond, attracted Lovett to the property, its first acquisition in Virginia. 

“The Hampton Roads market has some of the best fundamentals in the country,” says Ben Swift, the company’s senior associate for the East Region. “That, combined with the billions of dollars being spent to upgrade the port and I-64, makes this property perfectly positioned to … draw upon the demand for industrial in Hampton Roads … [and] in Richmond.”

Ellis Colthorpe, an associate with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, which is handling marketing and leasing for the park, says tenants will include businesses already in the region, as well as newcomers. “Most tenants will use the Port of Virginia,” he adds. “The port has $1.4 billion in infrastructure projects, and that’s driving new tenants into the market.”

Additionally, Colthorpe notes, more than 500,000 potential workers live within a 45-minute drive from the park. “This will be a huge employment opportunity for James City County. Job creation and tax revenues are the two biggest hot-button items.”

Situated on Old State Road and a portion of Barnes Road south of I-64, the property had been in the Hazelwood family since 1886. The three Hazelwood siblings who sold the land to Lovett initially wanted the property rezoned to accommodate 75,000 square feet of commercial space, a truck terminal and up to 250 multifamily units. Community members had expressed concern about traffic and noise impacts, however.

Real Estate 2023: ROBERT M. ‘BOB’ KING

King was named chairman of the commercial real estate company’s board in May after his adoptive father, Harvey L. Lindsay Jr., died on April 19 at age 93.

Lindsay adopted King and his brother, Billy, after he married their mother, Frances. Their father, naval pilot Robert M. King Jr., died in a training flight accident in 1954. Both young men joined the Lindsay real estate firm, which was founded by Harvey Lindsay Sr. in 1919, and Bob King became president in 2019. King has leased shopping centers for individuals, private partnerships and institutional clients since 1978 and has led the retail leasing team since 1985. The company’s shopping center portfolio now exceeds 4.5 million square feet of retail space, and King was named one of CoStar’s top retail leasing brokers in 2022.

King has a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and an MBA from Old Dominion University and is a longtime member of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Real Estate 2023: C. LEE WARFIELD

Warfield has led Thalhimer, one of the state’s oldest and largest commercial real estate firms, since 2016.

Thalhimer Realty Partners, one of the company’s subsidiaries, is part of the team developing Richmond’s $2.44 billion Diamond District, a mixed-use project that will include a replacement baseball stadium for the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball team. Richmond City Council approved the project in May.

Earlier this year, the firm announced the rebranding of its residential property management division as Thalhimer Multifamily, adding more than 1,000 multifamily units to its management portfolio.

Warfield is Thalhimer’s fourth CEO since its 1913 founding. He joined Thalhimer as an associate broker in 1995, specializing in site selection services for regional and national retailers, as well as land assemblage and predevelopment leasing. He became director of the retail services group two years later, working with national retailers Home Depot and Walmart. 

A 1985 graduate of James Madison University, Warfield leads the real estate firm’s 10 offices and 450 associates in Virginia.

HOW I BALANCE WORK AND PERSONAL LIFE: We are “always working.” In this day and age, you have to be available even when you are on vacation.

FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM: Boston Celtics

Real Estate 2023: ROBB ‘R.J.’ JOHNSON

With 30-plus years of industry experience, Johnson worked with The Staubach Co. beginning in 1995, ultimately serving as president for the mid-Atlantic region until it merged with Fortune Global 500 commercial real estate company JLL
in 2008. 

Johnson has served JLL clients from offices in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., for the past 15 years. In 2022, JLL moved its Northern Virginia office to McLean from Vienna.

A University of Maryland graduate, Johnson has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in international development.

HOBBY/PASSION: My hobby, what some might call an obsession, is collecting wine.

MOST REWARDING CAREER EXPERIENCE: My greatest passion is mentorship and education. Through my work with JLLU, the comprehensive training course we provide for new brokers, I have had the opportunity to shape the curriculum for younger generations. I am in a position now to help shepherd the careers of younger brokers, and that is the most rewarding part of my career.

Winchester shopping center sale could revitalize area

During his time on Winchester City Council, Jeff Buettner recalls, plans to revitalize Ward Plaza shopping center were a frequent topic of conversation at every council retreat, going back as far as 1998. Now, as interim executive director of the Winchester Economic Development Authority, he believes that vision is coming close to fruition.

“It is a project that is near and dear to my heart,” Buettner says. “It’s just been floating out there for so long, and this is as close to having something happen as I’ve seen in my time involved with city government.”

The 19.6-acre property, originally opened as a shopping center in the 1960s, finally sold on June 1 after decades on the market. H. Paige Manuel, who represented the former owners, Walter Enterprises, in the sale, says the buyer, McLean investor John W. Gray Jr., intends to demolish the existing structures in November, with plans to replace Ward Plaza with a mixed-use development, including residential units and a smaller shopping center that the new owners — Winchester Acquisition Partners, the company name Gray purchased the shopping center under — hope will be anchored by a supermarket. Manuel says the area is currently a food desert, an area with limited options to purchase healthy, affordable food.

“If we get your typical footprint of a 40,000-square-foot supermarket, you’re probably looking at a 50,000- to 60,000-square-foot shopping center,” Manuel says.

Gray declined to comment on his plans before October, but Buettner says that Gray is finalizing details on potential tenants at the new shopping center.

Winchester City Manager Dan Hoffman, who was also involved in talks regarding the property, said in a statement that Ward Plaza has been a priority for many years in the city’s comprehensive plan, named as one of five “catalyst” sites which are intended to bring walkability, mixed-use development and improved street connections to the area.

“This project will bring vital housing and retail opportunities to the Winchester community and spur economic development in the heart of Winchester’s commercial district,” Hoffman said in the statement.

Buettner knows that even with the sale of the property, the developer will still have to apply for rezoning and present a site plan before the city can approve it and redevelopment can begin: “It’s up to the developer to take it across the finish line, but we have confidence based on everything we’ve seen.”