Walnut Hill Plaza has new owner
WOONSOCKET – Walnut Hill Plaza has been sold to a Florida-based real estate development company in a $5.7 million transaction Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt is calling the start of a comeback for the struggling shopping center.
The transaction was announced Friday by the buyer, Out of the Box Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Lion- heart Capital of Miami, a company with interests in hotels and shopping centers all over the world. The company did not say how much it paid for the shopping center, but Baldelli-Hunt said the figure was recorded on property records at the closing, which took place on June 29.
“I’m excited to be working with them,” the mayor said. “They generally buy underperforming assets. Their goal is to fill vacancies. Their goal isn’t to sit on an underperforming asset and leave retail spaces vacant. The plaza had been held by the Walnut Hills Trust for the last several years, with leasing outsourced to KeyPoint Partners, a Massachusetts property management company. In marked contrast to Diamond Hill Plaza – the other shopping center that dominantes the city’s busiest shopping zone – Walnut Hill Plaza has struggled in recent years, with roughly half of its 303,508 square feet of retail space vacant.
Perhaps the biggest blow in recent years was the demise of Sears, which was shuttered last winter in a corporate downsizing move. More recently, Ocean State Job Lot pulled up stakes for new digs in the former Walmart building, located across the street.
Despite the setbacks, Walnut Hill Plaza remains the home of a number of national chain merchandisers, including Olympia Sports, Weight Watchers, Payless Shoe Source, GameStop and T-Mobile. With 28 retails slots of various sizes – roughly half of them empty – the plaza is anchored by Aero Trampoline, Planet Fitness and Walnut Hill Bowl.
“We are excited and optimistic about the opportunity to bring new life and excitement to the center and to the Greater Woonsocket community,” Ashley Thornberg,
Lionheart’s director of retail operations, said in a prepared statement.
A spokeswoman for the company said Thornberg or other principals of Lionheart would be unavailable for additional comment about the company’ s first acquisition in Rhode Island until next week. She said Out of the Box Ventures has acquired some 2 million square feet of “underperforming real estate” in multiple states, including commercial properties in Bangor, Me.; Battle Creek and Midland, both in Michagan; Lakeland, Fla.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Pittsburgh, Pa; and Williamsburg, Va.
Baldelli-Hunt, who has previously attempted to woo the Market Basket chain to the city – there aren’t any Market Baskets in Rhode Island – said the sale is lifting her hopes that there will soon be more than one full-service grocery store operating within the city limits. She said she met with the principals of Out of the Box Ventures about two weeks before the closing and they seemed to agree that a supermarket would be a good fit for Walnut Hill Plaza, particularly in the former Sears building.
Out of the Box Ventures’ parent company, Lionheart Capital, says its principals have been involved in the “acquisition, development, repositioning and disposition” of some $4 billion worth of real estate assets in the U.S. , Brazil, China and the Carribean.
Baldelli-Hunt said she has preliminary begun discussing the possiblity of the buyers taking advantage of Qualified Opportunity Zone tax incentives to help redevelop the plaza. The new program allows developers to convert capital gains taxes into investments in areas deemed QOZs. The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation recently designated three census tracts in the city as QOZs, including those encompassing the Diamond Hill Road shopping centers.
“This proactive transaction directly reflects the progressive rejuvenation of the city’s major retail district which my administration has consistently made a priority,” Baldelli-Hunt said. When I became mayor, our retail strip was virtually inactive and vastly stagnant. The new ownership will automatically bring new ideas, new energy and vitality to this expansive site as well as the overall community.