First Washington Realty Inc. has sold Casas Adobes Plaza, a 92,330-square-foot shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., for $51 million.
An entity associated with Litwin Management acquired the property with the help of a $25.5 million loan from Nationwide, public records show. JLL represented the seller and secured the financing.
Sited on 9.5 acres, Casas Adobes Plaza came online in 1953 and was remodeled in 2014. The asset was 97 percent leased at the time of sale, anchor tenants including Whole Foods, but also Starbucks, Pei Wei, Talbots and Chico’s.
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Casas Adobes Plaza is at 7001-7139 N. Oracle Road, at the intersection of Oracle and Ina roads. The shopping center serves Tucson’s two most affluent residential communities in Tucson, Catalina Foothills and Oro Valley, the trade area having an average household income of more than $122,240 in a 1-mile radius, according to JLL.
Managing Directors Patrick Dempsey and Geoff Tranchina led the JLL Capital Markets Investment Advisory team, while Senior Managing Director Greg Brown and Senior Director Jason Carlos led the Debt Advisory team. Analyst Quin Madden supported both groups.
Fertile desert
The Tucson area is enjoying modest rises in both population and employment, but also an unemployment rate that declined to 3.4 percent, according to a second-quarter report from Cushman & Wakefield.
The metro’s retail market was stable at 5.7 percent vacancy and positive absorption of 52,500 square feet over the previous 12 months. Some spaces have been repurposed this year, including two Walgreens that were converted into Dollar Tree locations.
Last January, First Washington Realty sold River Center, a 107,508-square-foot Class A retail center in Tucson, to a private investor for $31.1 million. Whole Foods anchors that property as well.
