Laguna Hills Mall Purchased by N.Y. Investment Firm

Laguna Hills Mall has been purchased by the O’Connor Group, a real estate investment firm headquartered in New York.

The purchase of the 808,450-square-foot mall for an undisclosed sum was completed last week, said Paul Kastner, an O’Connor group spokesman. The shopping center was one of eight retail properties purchased in Southern California by the East Coast firm, which also bought The Promenade in Woodland Hills.

Kastner said the O’Connor Group will take over management and leasing responsibility for both malls on Jan. 1. Both Laguna Hills Mall and the Promenade are expected to be targeted for future renovation and expansion, said Kastner, who gave no details about potential plans for sprucing up the malls.

Laguna Hills Mall had taxable sales of $136 million last year, a 2.3% jump from 1987. Among Orange County’s 13 regional malls, it ranked seventh in sales.

The mall had been put up for sale in March by owner Pan American Properties, a real estate investment trust owned by a pension fund for British coal miners. Pan American said at the time that it planned to sell the mall and an adjoining strip mall as part of a portfolio of all 55 of its other American real estate holdings.

At the time the proposed sale was announced, the pension fund had said it was disappointed with the returns on its investments in United States real estate.

The 72-acre mall has four department stores--The Broadway, Buffums, Sears Roebuck & Co. and J.C. Penney Co.--and 80 smaller shops. It shares a parking lot with the Laguna Hills Shopping Center, which Pan American also owns.