Economic headwinds and tariff uncertainty haven’t shaken investor confidence in Dallas-Fort Worth enough to derail a blockbuster retail real estate deal.
Kite Realty Group Trust and Singapore’s GIC acquired the retail portion of Legacy West in Plano for $785 million, the Dallas Business Journal reported. The seller has not been identified. The deal for the 344,000 square foot shopping center works out to $2,282 per square foot.
The deal, brokered by Eastdil Secured, includes high-end retail space with tenants like Louis Vuitton and Gucci, part of a larger 35-acre mixed-use campus that also includes 444,000 square feet of office space and 782 apartments. The broader development, once home to JCPenney’s corporate headquarters, was previously valued near $3 billion.
The purchase gives a 52 percent stake to Kite, which will take over operations, while GIC owns 48 percent. Kite said it funded its share with a combination of equity and a $255 million draw on its unsecured revolving credit line; it assumed part of a $304 million mortgage at 3.8 percent interest.
The acquisition is part of what Kite calls its “pod” strategy, a way to buy higher-quality properties while selling off older ones to keep earnings steady.
In this case, those older assets included Stoney Creek Commons, an 84,000-square-foot shopping center in Indianapolis, which Kite sold for $9.5 million in April. It’s also in talks to sell two other dragging centers, according to an investor presentation: Fullerton Metrocenter, a 241,000-square-foot property near Los Angeles, and City Center in White Plains, New York, which spans more than 363,000 square feet.
The firm projected proceeds of the two pending sales could range from $171.5 million to $181.5 million. The net impact of the deal on Kite’s core earnings would be a half-cent drop per share, the presentation said.
“The underlying confidence in North Texas is evidenced by a transaction like this,” Bob Young of Weitzman told the outlet. Investors are cooling on some sectors, especially office, but retail remains one of the healthiest commercial asset classes, according to Partners’ Steve Triolet.
Kite CEO John Kite called the purchase a “pivotal step forward” for the REIT. Retail sales at the center average more than $1,000 per square foot, a presentation said.
“Assets like Legacy West don’t come around very often,” he said. “This was by far the best opportunity because of the mark-to-market potential and overall asset quality.”
Major institutional investors are still making big bets on North Texas across asset classes, even with inflation, debt costs and tariffs in the mix. Last month, Blackstone paid Dallas-based Crow Holdings $718 million for a 6-million-square-foot industrial portfolio spread across the Dallas and Houston markets. Virginia-based REIT AvalonBay Communities doubled its Texas multifamily holdings with a nearly $620 million deal in late February.
— Judah Duke
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