5-13-2015: TRC Sells Village on the Parkway to UBS

One of Dallas-Fort Worth’s prime retail projects—Village on the Parkway in Addison—has sold to institutional investor UBS after a North Texas-based group purchased the property from foreclosure and invested $40 million into redeveloping the site.

At one time, the 30-acre shopping center was foreclosed upon and only 50 percent occupied. Today, it’s hard to find a parking spot in front of the still relatively new Whole Foods grocery store. “This punctuates the power of collaboration,” Steve Lieberman, CEO of The Retail Connection, which is based in Dallas, told the Dallas Business Journal. “Everybody played their parts—between The Retail Connection to Lincoln Property to Long Wharf to the Town of Addison—they all worked together to optimize a piece of real estate.”

We all had a shared vision and executed on it.”

The Retail Connection, Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. and Long Wharf Real Estate Partners purchased the 360,418-square-foot shopping center from foreclosure in spring 2011. The group developed the Whole Foods grocery store, an AMC Theatres 12-screen movie theater and opened up the property to the rest of the Town of Addison. “The repositioning was critical to the property sale,” Lieberman said. “It elevated the quality of the property and repositioned it to optimize the real estate. To address the design and tenant issues, we had to literally tear down about half of the buildings.”

The occupancy rate was spiked dramatically, and Village on the Parkway is now estimated to have a more than 90% occupancy rate. HFF marketed Village on the Parkway, which had a number of bidders prior to UBS being the last bidder standing. For Addison, which spent more than $20 million to help revitalize the shopping center, the deal was a welcome one for the community, said Orlando Campos, director of economic development and tourism for Addison.

“We are glad the new owners have a local presence so we can help collaborate and communicate with them to grow Village on the Parkway,” Campos said.

“This is one of our most important shopping center in our community.”

The property comes along with a sales-tax-sharing agreement over a 20-year term, which is estimated to be worth $19.3 million. Under the deal, the ownership group receives 75 percent of all sales tax generated above $300,000, which was the sales tax revenue generated for the town prior to redevelopment. Lieberman said the group plans to finish the redevelopment of Village on the Parkway, which is going through its “final stages,” except for a development pad site on the southeast corner of the property, which UBS could further develop at a future date.

He added The Retail Connection plans to focus on the firm’s other development projects, which total more than 4 million square feet of real estate. “Our development capacity is extends the reach of our clients expansion programs, which reinforces how strong the Texas markets are,” he said. “Based on store performances, there is a lot of demand for retail space in Texas.”