TH Real Estate Acquires Town Square Las Vegas
The company has teamed up with Fairbourne Partners to purchase the 1.1 million-square-foot lifestyle center.
By Gail Kalinoski
Las Vegas—TH Real Estate has expanded its retail holdings in Las Vegas with the acquisition of an 85 percent share in Town Square Las Vegas, a 1.1 million-square-foot lifestyle center, along with minority stakeholder Fairbourne Partners.
Town Square Las Vegas
The price of the transaction for the 100-acre Class A retail center with 26 buildings was not disclosed.
TH Real Estate, an investment affiliate of Nuveen that was formerly known as TIAA Global Asset Management, is a real estate investment management holding company owned by TIAA with $96 billion in assets under management. The purchase of Town Square Las Vegas was made on behalf of its T-C US Super Regional Mall Fund LLC. The firm announced in August that it had closed the fund after raising $1.25 billion from investors and planned to invest in “dominant super-regional malls via ventures with top tier operators.”
Town Square Las Vegas seems to fit the criteria. Retail, including restaurants, takes up 79 percent of the property, with offices in the remaining 21 percent of the space. It is 90 percent occupied overall and is anchored by a mix of national retailers including Apple, Whole Foods, H&M, Victoria’s Secret, Saks OFF 5th and The Container Store. Solar City, a company led by Elon Musk that specializes in full-service solar power systems, leases about 113,000 square feet of the office space. The site also has an 18-screen AMC movie theater.
“Town Square aligns with our fund’s strategic focus on high-quality, well-located mall assets which have proven to be distinctly strong and stable performers throughout multiple cycles,” Scott Kempton, managing director and portfolio manager for the Super Regional all Fund at TH Real Estate, said in a prepared statement. “We believe Town Square can benefit from proactive asset management and will reformat and remerchandise aspects of the retail offering to provide the fashion and entertainment mix that appeals to millennials and other consumers.”
The open-air lifestyle center opened in November 2007 but by March 2011 it had been seized through foreclosure, a victim of the economic downturn that hit Las Vegas particularly hard, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But the property is in a location that attracts both local residents and tourists, so the joint venture partners feel it is a smart investment.
“The asset also benefits from the central location at the junction of Interstates 15 and 213, at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. It also attracts the local Las Vegas community, making it a true ‘town center’ that draws an upscale demographic from the surrounding areas including Henderson and Summerlin,” Kempton noted.
TH Real Estate has other interests in large Las Vegas retail assets. In 2013, it acquired a 49.9 percent stake in the Grand Canal Shoppes from owner General Growth Properties. More recently, the firm in July bought a 50 percent stake in the Fashion Show mall, also from General Growth. The price paid for the Grand Canal Shoppes stake was $411.5 million and $1.25 billion for the Fashion Show investment, the Las Vegas Review-Journal stated.
In late December, TH Real Estate sold a smaller open-air retail center in Orlando, Fla., for $92.5 million, according to a Commercial Property Executive report. The Plaza Venezia, a 201,808-square-foot property on 27 acres, was sold to Regency Centers Corp. and an unidentified co-investment partner.
Image courtesy of Studio J Inc.
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