Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors, a nationally recognized real estate brokerage and advisory firm specializing in retail property sales, announced today that the firm has completed the sale of a two-tenant, 6,999-square-foot retail pad building occupied by AutoZone and Precision Eyebrow Threading salon at a Target-anchored shopping center in northern Los Angeles County. The net-leased investment sold for $2.65 million.
Hanley Investment Group’s Executive Vice Presidents Kevin Fryman, Bill Asher and Jeff Lefko represented the seller, a private investor based in Laguna Beach, California. The buyer, a 1031 exchange investor based in the Los Angeles area, represented themselves.
The property, built in 1987, sits on a 0.57-acre parcel at 1242-1248 West Avenue K, at the on/off ramp to the 14 Freeway. AutoZone occupies 6,710 square feet and Precision Eyebrow Threading salon occupies 289 square feet.
“Prior to formally marketing the property, we advised the seller to execute a new long-term lease extension with AutoZone to enhance the property’s salability,” Fryman said. “It resulted in procuring an all-cash 1031 exchange buyer seeking a stable investment with a long-term historical occupancy and new lease term that helped maximize value for the seller.”
Fryman added, “In mid-December, at the same center, we sold two value-add shop buildings adjacent to Target, and on either side of 24 Hour Fitness, as a two-property investment totaling 11,080 square feet. We executed a break-up sale strategy that targeted two different buyer pools: value-add investors for the two shop buildings and stabilized buyers for the AutoZone building. The separate sales helped achieve maximum value for each, compared to selling them together.”
AutoZone has been a tenant at the Target-anchored shopping center since 2012 and, in 2022, extended its lease with increases every five years. Precision Eyebrow Threading salon, specializing in eyebrow threading, tinting and waxing, has been a tenant since 2016 and extended its lease last year.
AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) is the nation’s leading retailer/distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories with 7,044 stores.
“AutoZone is recession-resistant, as consumers use and extend the life of their automobiles instead of purchasing a new one during times of economic stress,” said Asher. “Furthermore, AutoZone does well during strong economic times because as new automobile sales climb, the number of cars on the road increases. AutoZone never closed during the COVID pandemic as they were deemed an ‘essential’ business.”
Other national tenants that were not a part of the offering but generate regional traffic to the shopping center include 24 Hour Fitness, Big 5 Sporting Goods, Big Lots, Boot Barn, Crunch Fitness, Ross Dress for Less, AAA, Bank of America, Chase Bank, KFC, McDonald’s Subway and Advance America. There are 178,000 people within a five-mile radius of the center.
Lancaster is located in northern Los Angeles County in Antelope Valley and one hour north of downtown Los Angeles. Lancaster is home to major defense contractors such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, and government agencies, such as the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, which are all active in the design, testing, and manufacturing of a variety of military and commercial equipment. The region is also proximate to the Mojave Air & Space Port at Rutan Field, the base of operations for Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, the company that designed SpaceShipOne and won the X-Prize.
“Although overall retail investment sales velocity is down in 2023, and prices and cap rates have softened, the demand for long-term corporate net-leased investments with strong real estate fundamentals has remained steady this year,” said Asher. “These types of assets are still selling for premium historical pricing due to the lack of supply of quality assets to choose from in today’s market.”