Milan Capital Buys Metro San Diego Retail Center
JLL Capital Markets brokered the sale and arranged acquisition financing.
Milan Capital Management has purchased Pavilion Shopping Center, a 137,742-square-foot open-air retail center in Vista, Calif. Brixton Capital sold the asset for $30.5 million.
JLL Capital Markets arranged the deal on behalf of the seller and procured a $19.5 million acquisition loan. Citibank provided the 10-year note, according to Yardi Matrix information.
The property changed hands for nearly 66 percent more than its previous sale price. Brixton had bought it in 2015 for $18.4 million, the same data provider shows.
JLL Senior Managing Directors Gleb Lvovich, Geoff Tranchina and Managing Director Daniel Tyner led the Investment Sales and Advisory team that brokered the current sale on behalf of Brixton, while Senior Managing Directors Jeff Sause and John Chun and Associate Allie Black from the Debt Advisory team arranged the financing.
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Grocery-anchored retail centers continue to be the centerpiece of recent retail industry trends, meeting customers’ current demand for necessity-based shopping experiences.
“Open-air retail, in particular grocery-anchored neighborhood centers, are the most attractive to capital in the market today. Grocery-anchored retail as a whole has been a beneficiary of rent growth and strong tenant performance, further driving value to the well-positioned existing centers in the market,” Tranchina told Commercial Property Executive in the context of the wider Southern California area.
A San Diego grocery-anchored retail center
Completed in 1990 at 1900-1998 Hacienda Drive, Pavilion Shopping Center comprises three buildings across an 11-acre site. The property has recently undergone capital improvements that focused on upgrading the parking lot.
North Park Produce anchors the shopping center that has a tenant mix including Skechers, Daiso, Biolife Plasma Services, Dunn-Edwards Paints and a Dutch Bros Coffee shop that opened in February. The asset was 95.3 percent leased at the time of sale.
“North County San Diego, and in particular Vista and Oceanside, continue to see population growth, which further drives traffic to the retail centers in the area,” Lvovich added.
Pavilion Shopping Center serves approximately 313,000 residents within a 5-mile radius, with average household incomes of $132,737, according to JLL. The retail property sits at the interchange between Hacienda Drive, Ronald Packard Parkway and South Emerald Drive, some 40 miles north of downtown San Diego.
Steady rise for San Diego retail
In the first 11 months of 2025, the San Diego retail market saw $484.2 million in investment sales, with 18 properties trading at an average of $260 per square foot, according to Yardi Matrix information. During the same period last year, the metro registered only $264 million in sales, with 15 assets changing hands at $333 per square foot on average. While the total investment figure rose approximately 83.4 percent year-over-year, the 21.9 percent decrease in the per-square-foot price points to lower-priced properties trading this year.
“San Diego has historically always been one of the most attractive markets for investors. With high barriers to entry and profound demographics, it will continue to demand strong interest from capital investing in retail,” JLL’s Tyner concluded.
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