Touting an under-the-radar but exceptionally strong retail trade area, Fayetteville, North Carolina, is perhaps best known as the site of Fort Bragg. With over 546,000 active soldiers, 13,500 reserves, 14,000 civilian employees and 70,000 family employees, Fort Bragg is the largest U.S. military base in the world and the largest employer in the region. Fayetteville’s economy benefits from a massive military-related infusion of roughly $4.5 billion annually, making it one of the most desirable retail markets in the Southeast, but which few investors know about.
The SRS team set about to change that perception by creating a marketing package for the 352,010-square-foot Freedom Town Center that focused on Fayetteville’s overlooked but robust retail market, emphasizing the high disposable income among shoppers in Fayetteville, the strong retail sales reported by tenants in the center and Fayetteville's position as the fifth-largest city in North Carolina. They succeeded in attracting the attention of a potential buyer who was in the market for a large 1031 Exchange, following the sale of a significant amount of land on Long Island.
The sale to the New York-based investor was proceeding smoothly until the buyer's lender at the 11th hour asked for tenant estoppels and subordination, non-disturbance, and attornment or SNDA agreements, which confirm in writing that a lease exists and outline the conditions and terms and establishes an agreement between a tenant and a lender.
The additional conditions threatened to delay the deal closing. But so keen was the buyer to close the deal after conducting their due diligence and conducting a site visit and in-person tenant interviews, that the initially debt-dependent buyer agreed to become an all-cash buyer and simply pay $72.5 million to become the owner of the largest retail destination in the Fayetteville trade area.
The SRS Investment Properties Group team worked to put Fayetteville, North Carolina’s retail market on the map by arranging the sale of Freedom Town Center, which ranked as the second-largest retail property sale in the entire state last year, and has been selected by a panel of local industry professionals as the 2023 winner of the CoStar Impact Awards' Sale/Acquisition of the Year for Fayetteville.
About the Project: Freedom Town Center is a 2017 vintage lifestyle center at 2000 Skibo Road that serves as the retail nucleus for the city. It features such major retailers as Sprouts, Field & Stream, Dick’s Sporting Goods, HomeGoods, Hobby Lobby, Petco, Five Below, DSW, buybuy Baby and World Market.
They Made it Happen: Managing Principals Pierce Mayson and Kyle M. Stonis and Associate Boris Shilkrot of SRS Real Estate Partners' Investment Properties Group, marketed the retail center. Tyson Glasser, director of capital markets and dispositions for RealtyLink, represented the seller. At the time the sale was the largest single transaction in the Greenville, South Carolina-based company’s history.
