MCB’s Epic Deal Boosts Retail Portfolio by 2.2 MSF
The acquisition includes grocery-anchored assets valued at more than $575 million.
MCB Real Estate, a privately held national commercial real estate investment management and development firm, has started off the new year with the acquisition of Epic Real Estate Partners, adding about 2.2 million square feet of grocery-anchored retail assets to its portfolio. The assets comprise 15 retail centers across 10 states valued at more than $575 million.
The price MCB paid for Epic was not disclosed but it is the latest purchase for the firm that has been growing its national footprint through acquisitions for the past 12 months. During that time, MCB has completed acquisitions and taken on management responsibilities for more than $1 billion in assets in various U.S. markets. Founded in 2007, MCB now has a nationwide portfolio of about $4 billion in assets under management. The firm owns or manages approximately 20 million square feet, with nearly 6 million square feet in its development pipeline. In addition to retail, the company invests in industrial, office, mixed-use, health-care and multifamily properties.
An Epic deal
The Epic transaction includes the operating company with 13 professionals. The Epic team will continue to operate from its Austin, Texas, and Dallas offices that were acquired in the deal. They will be working within the operating platform of the Baltimore-based MCB Real Estate. Epic, led by founding principals Daniel Holland, Jason Maddox and Nick Tortorice, has a 13-year track record of investing in grocery-anchored properties across the U.S. Together they have more than 90 years’ experience in retail operations, development and acquisitions and have acquired or developed about $2.6 billion in retail assets.
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Epic’s institutional-quality and high-performing grocery-anchored retail shopping centers align with MCB’s existing national portfolio, providing a strong foothold and strategic presence in new submarkets, David Bramble, MCB’s co-founder and managing partner, said in a prepared statement.
The assets were 92 percent leased and the ownership structure of all property-level limited partnerships remained intact as part of the deal. The portfolio has a strong concentration of properties in high-growth Sun Belt and Midwest markets. Properties are located in Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, California, Louisiana and Hawaii.
Earlier joint venture
In October, MCB, Epic and Centerbridge Partners formed a joint venture to purchase the 444,000-square-foot Northwoods Shopping Center in San Antonio, Texas. Built in three phases between 1995 and 2001, the retail center features H-E-B, Nordstrom Rack, Marshalls, Old Navy, HomeSense, Barnes & Noble, Ulta and Regal Theaters.
Northwoods is the largest asset in Epic’s management portfolio followed by Marketplace Shopping Center, a 290,000-square-foot property in Temple, Texas. The smallest is the 74,000-square-foot Sprouts Crossing in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. The average shopping center size in the portfolio is just over 150,000 square feet. Also included in the Epic portfolio is Kauai Village in Kapa’a, Hawaii. Built in 1989, the 111,021-square-foot retail center is anchored by Safeway and Ross Dress for Less.
More MCB moves
The Epic deal comes nearly a year after MCB acquired Pinkard Properties, a Baltimore-based firm that specialized in asset and property management services, with 2 million square feet of office, flex/office, warehouse/industrial and retail space in the Maryland region. The deal added about 14 people with expertise in asset and property management to MCB’s staff. Pinkard co-founder Katherine Pinkard was named senior managing director of property management at MCB.
In August, a joint venture between MCB and Osiris Ventures acquired the site of the former Century 21 department store in Brooklyn, N.Y., from ASG Equities for $47.5 million. The joint venture said it planned to invest $100 million to redevelop the property into Century Marketplace, a 95,000-square-foot, grocery-anchored retail center. The project is expected to break ground this year.
In September 2024, MCB teamed up with a fund managed by DRA Advisors to purchase Falcon Ridge Town Center, a 274,424-square-foot retail center in Fontana, Calif., for $64.7 million from SITE Centers. The fully leased 25.1-acre property is anchored by regional grocery chain Stater Bros. Markets. Also in 2024, MCB formed a joint venture with Generation Properties to develop The Shops at Fairway Village, a $115 million mixed-use project in Waldorf, Md., near Washington, D.C. The project, which will include a Weis Markets grocery store, is slated for delivery in the spring.
Investors like grocery-anchored retail
MCB executives noted grocery-anchored retail properties continue to be an attractive and resilient commercial real estate asset class for investment. The transaction expands MCB’s strategy and optimization of value-add and stabilized retail assets in high-traffic and high-growth markets across the nation.
Daniel Taub, MCB’s head of retail, said in prepared remarks the Epic portfolio reinforces where and how consumers prefer to shop and highlights the durability of the retail asset class. Taub added retail properties, particularly grocery-anchored strip centers, are gaining momentum as investments due to attractive pricing, strong fundamentals and limited new supply, reflecting broader retail industry trends. Only 8.3 million square feet of retail space delivered in 2024, according to Cushman & Wakefield. As of May 2025, there were about 10.6 million square feet under development.
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