Newly Merged Company Buys Thousand Oaks Shopping Plaza

Take Jack’s Deli, a health club and a drugstore, add a gourmet restaurant and some neighborhood retailers, and anchor it all down with a Vons supermarket, and you’re liable to draw attention from the real estate community.

The Westlake Village Plaza & Center in Thousand Oaks sure did.

Located on Westlake Boulevard and Agoura Road, the 190,655-square-foot site has been purchased by the Regency Realty Corp. of Jacksonville, Fla.

The acquisition was Regency’s first since it merged last month with the Pacific Retail Trust. Both companies were affiliated with the multibillion-dollar Security Capital Group, which now owns the majority share of the newly formed company.

Regency and Pacific Retail Trust had similar real estate investment programs, with Regency concentrating on the western U.S. and Pacific Retail Trust working eastward from Texas. As a result of the merger, Regency now owns nearly 200 retail centers, covering 23.1 million square feet, throughout the country.

Regency officials, who bought the Thousand Oaks property from a pension fund group, said they were attracted by the Westlake Village Plaza & Center because the site symbolized the group’s investment focus.

“It fits our strategy perfectly in that we are a grocery-store-anchored infill retail shopping center [real estate investment trust],” said Brian Smith, Regency’s regional managing director.

“It will be very difficult for new competition to enter into the market, and it’s got superb demographics and a tenant mix that will remain very successful in the area,” he said. “I think the Westlake area is typical of the areas we like to develop in: places people want to live, a very affluent area with high housing prices, an area where people value the schools, an area we know will remain solid.”

Tom McDonough, senior vice president of acquisitions with Regency, said growth of upscale retail developments along Westlake Boulevard and the general vibrancy of the area were big draws for the investment group.

“When we look for [property] we think, ‘Could this go up? Could this go down?’ ” McDonough said. “Because the area is becoming more of a regional location with the Promenade at Westlake and other developments, there is an opportunity for this place to get even better, for us ultimately to improve the tenant mix and provide more regional tenants in this neighborhood center.”

The Westlake Village Plaza & Center is about 95% leased. McDonough said Regency has no particular target for retailers to fill out the mix.

“We didn’t identify anything major that is missing,” he said. “We’d always like to continue to upgrade the tenants.”

Sixteen of Regency’s shopping centers are located in Southern California, including Oakbrook Plaza on Avenida de los Arboles and Ventura Village on Telephone Road in Ventura.

Smith said future Southern California properties are likely to follow. Regency recently secured a $635-million line of credit to make additional investments, he said, and has a substantial program for new developments in the Pacific region.

“We have several major projects in the Northwest and several in Northern California,” Smith said. “The vast majority, though, will be in Southern California.” The Westlake Village center will be managed out of Regency’s Irvine office.