Raanan Katz is back on the retail court with his $36 million purchase of a shopping center in Broward County.
An affiliate of Katz’s Sunny Isles Beach-based RK Centers bought Riverbend Marketplace at 2510 to 2670 West Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, records show. Katz’s family run firm is a prolific investor in South Florida shopping centers, buying and selling properties that consistently trade at competitive prices. A former professional basketball player, Katz is also a minority owner of the Miami Heat.
RK paid $391 a square foot for the 92,007-square-foot retail facility. That’s about $8.6 million above the previous sale price six years ago.
The seller, an affiliate of Toronto-based Northbridge Capital, led by Stuart, Michael and Adam Lazier, paid $27.4 million for the 10.2-acre site in 2019, records show. The property is adjacent to a Walmart Supercenter that was built by the same developer, Gatlin Development Co. The big box store and the shopping center were completed between 2017 and 2019.
Riverbend Marketplace’s tenants include Marshalls, Planet Fitness, Five Below, Wells Fargo and Chipotle.
Riverbend is the second Broward shopping center that RK bought this year. In April, an RK affiliate paid $16.4 million for Shoppes at Monarch Lakes, a Miramar shopping center anchored by a Publix supermarket. Other tenants include Dunkin’, Subway and Banfield Pet Hospital. Katz’s company also bought a furniture showroom in Pembroke Pines for $15.2 million in January.
A flurry of shopping center deals have closed recently in Broward.
In Coral Springs, four such properties traded last month. Coral Gables-based Maven Real Estate bought Atlantic Crossings, a shopping center anchored by Whole Foods and Home Depot stores, for $40.5 million. New York-based financial giant JPMorgan dropped $53.7 million for Shoppes at Heron Lakes, a pair of retail buildings featuring tenants such as Crunch Fitness, the Fish Joint and Aldo Cleaners. Two other shopping centers were sold for $26.5 million and $60.5 million.
In October, Hollywood-based JBL Asset Management paid $25 million for Palm Square, a shopping center in the firm’s home city.
Overall, Broward’s retail leasing is holding steady. In the third quarter, the county’s retail landlords experienced a vacancy rate of 3.9 percent, relatively unchanged from the same period last year when it was 3.7 percent, according to Colliers. The average asking rent in the third quarter rose to $28.76 a square foot compared to $27.86 a square foot during the same period last year.
