Developer Lowe and Sunbelt Investment Holdings bought the Westfield Mission Valley mall in San Diego in deals totaling about $290 million, as Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield proceeds with the planned selloff of its U.S. retail center properties.
A URW statement confirmed the total deal price for the 63-year-old property, among San Diego’s largest regional malls with about 1.5 million square feet of stores and restaurants on 45 acres at 1640-1750 Camino Del Rio North. URW said the property is 71% occupied, with tenants including Target, Bloomingdale’s Outlet, Nordstrom Rack, Macy’s and 24 Hour Fitness.
URW said Friday it sold the property’s open-air component on its eastern side to Lowe, and the strip-center component on its western side to Sunbelt Investment Holdings of San Diego.
CoStar data as of July 21 showed the sale of Westfield Mission Valley is the largest retail property transaction of the past year by total price and among the largest of the past decade for San Diego. The region’s retail development has remained limited with infrequent trades for existing properties in high-demand neighborhoods.
Los Angeles-based Lowe and its investment partner, Real Capital Solutions of Louisville, Colorado, plan to upgrade the open-air component and reposition it as a mixed-use village with access to several existing nearby transit stations, Lowe said in a statement Friday.
“We are well acquainted with this property and have long had an interest in its potential both as a thriving, ongoing retail destination and as an opportunity to bring much-needed housing to this community,” said Lowe Executive Vice President Mike McNerney.
Lowe has not filed formal plans or timetables with the city of San Diego. The city previously rezoned the Mission Valley neighborhood, a high-traffic hub for retail and other commercial development, to eventually include about 50,000 new residential units near the acquired mall.
A URW statement said the transaction brings the mall operator’s nationwide proceeds to $1.7 billion from dispositions of 14 properties. This is after it announced in 2020 that it would sell all of its U.S. centers to focus resources on investments and projects in Europe and other regions. The properties span several states including California and Florida, and URW has more dispositions in the works.
Westfield Mission Valley was originally built in 1960 and renovated in 1996 in the busy Mission Valley neighborhood in the geographic center of San Diego, where multiple mixed-use projects by several developers are already in progress.
The neighborhood has among the region’s largest concentrations of retail centers, with national chains and developers attracted by its access to several major freeways that pass through it.