Glendale Fashion Center sold

Alex Coolman

NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- The Glendale Fashion Center, the city’s second

largest retail center, was sold Wednesday to a private investment group

for more than $57 million.

Rancho Palisades, LLC purchased the 264,000-square-foot North Glendale

Avenue shopping center from Vestar Development Company and Lend-Lease

Real Estate Investments. Vestar will continue to manage the center under

the deal, said Hamo Rostamian, a senior broker with CB Richard Ellis,

which represented the sellers in the deal.

The center, which was rebuilt after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake,

opened in June of 2000. It is home to 19 tenants, including Ralphs,

Barnes & Noble, Staples and Petco. It opened with 100% of its retail

space leased and has continued to be a strong performer since that time,

according to Realtors and city officials.

Rostamian said the center brings in more than $500,000 in annual sales

tax revenue to the city, a figure city officials said is close to their

own numbers.

“It fills a niche, and it seems to be doing it rather well,” said

Glendale Senior Project Manager Alex Hamilton. “It’s almost like a hybrid

shopping center. There’s two or three different elements.”

Finance Director Bob Franz said the sale of the center was “not

unanticipated.”

“This is the typical sequence. A shopping center developer goes

through who is more interested in developing a successful center and then

selling it for a profit,” he said. “We’ve known they were marketing it

for some time.”

A spokeswoman for Rancho Palisades did not return calls asking for

comment late Thursday.