Joseph N. DiStefano,
Inquirer Staff Writer
BET Investments, the
real estate investment group owned by Toll Bros. cofounder Bruce E. Toll, plans
"a walkable mixed-use project" at what is now Granite Run Mall after
the firm's successful bid of $24 million for the shopping center near Media.
"We are very
excited about the deal and its possibilities," said Michael Markman,
president of BET Investments, in Horsham.
New York-based Rockwood
Realty Advisors conducted the sale.
Banks represented by CW
Capital Management foreclosed on Granite Run in 2011 after national mall owner
Simon Property Group and partner Macerich Co. stopped paying interest on $115
million they had borrowed to buy the place, figuring it wasn't worth that much
anymore.
Before
it went to auction, CW tried hiring Washington-based mall manager Madison
Marquette, which ran the much-smaller Glen Eagle center on U.S. 202 in Chadds
Ford, to recruit "high-end tenants" to add to Sears, Boscov's,
JCPenney, Kohl's, an AMC theater, an Acme Market, and the smaller stores at
Granite Run.
The mall is now 85
percent occupied, according to Markman.
Plans to build more than
one million square feet of commercial and housing space at the former Franklin
Mint site further north on Route 1 have sparked some opposition from residents
and are on hold pending the outcome of a legal dispute between that site's
would-be developers.
BET is one of a number
of developers exploiting depressed suburban commercial real estate prices to
bet on a revival.
The 2008 recession all
but stopped office and retail construction in the surrounding counties, though
apartment construction has revived.
In the last two years,
BET has purchased a series of apartment and retail properties in the
Philadelphia suburbs. Last week, the firm said it paid $4.68 million for the
former Waterloo Gardens nursery in Exton, Chester County, and promised, as at
Granite Run, a "mix of uses."
MAIN MALL TENANTS
The Granite Run Mall
near Media is 85 percent occupied. Key tenants are:
Acme Markets
AMC Theaters
Boscov's
Kohl's
JCPenney
Sears
Full story: http://tinyurl.com/pvazqaw
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