Starwood checks out of Westlake shopping center for $20M

Barry Sternlicht’s firm is latest landlord to capitalize on grocery-anchored retail site frenzy in South Florida

Starwood’s Barry Sternlicht with 5060 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road
Starwood’s Barry Sternlicht with 5060 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road (Katz & Associates)

Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Property Trust is the latest landlord to cash out of a grocery store-anchored shopping center in South Florida.

An affiliate of Starwood, based in Miami Beach and Greenwich, Connecticut, sold Grove Market, a 77,000-square-foot shopping center at 5060 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road in Westlake, for $19.5 million, records show. The deal breaks down to about $253 a square foot.

A consortium of four entities managed by three different individuals bought the 8.75-acre property, financed with a $14.5 million mortgage from ConnectOne Bank.

The buyers include Michael Gleit, managing partner of Edge Ventures, a Brooklyn-based family office specializing in retail real estate; Peter Tiflinsky, a principal of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey-based Premier Developers; and Jacob Khotoveli, founder and managing partner of Hollywood-based JBL Asset Management.

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JLL’s Eric Williams brokered the sale. In 2016, Starwood paid $3.4 million for Grove Market when the shopping center was without an anchor tenant, records show.
Built in 1999, Grove Market signed Winn-Dixie to a long-term lease for a 53,000-square-foot store last year. The grocer recently opened, according to Jon Cashion with Katz & Associates Retail Real Estate Advisors, which will continue to handle leasing at Grove Market. Other tenants include Napa Auto Parts, Planes Dental, Gator Shack and Sunshine Nails of PB, a leasing brochure states.

It’s been a seller’s market for grocery store-anchored shopping centers in South Florida. This month, a joint venture between Pebb Enterprises and Banyan Development sold Mainstreet at Boynton in Boynton Beach for $33 million, or $630 a square foot. Katonah, New York-based Carlyle Management bought the 52,000-square-foot shopping center anchored by Sprouts.

Last month, Weston-based commercial real estate investor Beth Azor sold Plantation Crossing in Plantation to the Madrid-Miami partnership Azora Exan for $22.2 million. Azor fetched about $314 a square foot for the 70,000-square-foot, Aldi-anchored shopping center.

Also in August, Miami Beach-based Savitar Realty Advisors sold Palm Trails Plaza for $17 million, nearly double the previous sale price in 2016 of $9.1 million. Boca Raton’s James Batmasian acquired the 77,000-square-foot retail plaza anchored by a Walmart Neighborhood Market.