June 18, 2010 (HOUSTON, TX) – Houston-based Boxer Property has purchased Charlotte’s Eastland Mall for $2 million, according to a deed filed late Monday. The company purchased the core retail space at the mall, which last sold for $54 million in 1998, but did not buy the four vacant anchor spaces.
The purchase includes the two-story, 512,000-square-foot mall building that sits on 16 acres on Central Avenue, plus nearly 7 acres of parking and several smaller properties surrounding the core building. Boxer will bring in retail and small-office tenants that fit with the diverse nature of Charlotte’s east side, similar to the company’s redevelopment of La Gran Plaza in Fort Worth, and Plaz Americas in Houston, Texas .
Eastland, which opened at Central Avenue and Sharon Amity Road in 1975, has struggled in recent years to attract and maintain tenants. It is the Charlotte region’s fifth-largest shopping center, measuring nearly 1.1 million square feet.
Before the sale, the mall was under the control of a holding company overseen by LNR Partners Inc., the special servicer on the loan, which is owned by private-equity fund Cerberus Capital Management. Boxer Property bought the foreclosing property right after the landlord, had asked mall tenants to vacate and will work with Grupo Zocalo, a subsidiary of Boxer property to manage leasing and tenant relationships for the property.
