DAYTONA BEACH – The sale of an aging, mostly empty shopping center on International Speedway Boulevard raises hopes that the “gateway to the world’s most famous beach” could receive much-needed new life.
Two national commercial real estate companies have partnered to pay $ 12.2 million for the Volusia Square shopping mall on the southeast corner of International Speedway and Williamson Boulevards. The sale closed on September 8, according to Kimberly Steele, a spokeswoman for JLL Capital Markets, the real estate company that represented the seller.
“This is totally good news,” said Maryam Ghyabi, chairman of the ISB Coalition, a civic group involved in efforts to revitalize the east-west corridor of Daytona Beach’s International Speedway Boulevard that leads from Interstate 95 to the sea .
“This is exactly what we were hoping for: investors in (urban) infill real estate,” she said.
“We don’t like empty shopping malls.” She added that there is a high probability that the new owners will upgrade the 35-year-old Volusia square to make it more attractive to potential tenants. “You wouldn’t pay good money just to sit on it,” she said.
The Volusia Square purchase did not include the home improvement store Home Depot and the adjacent Speedway Indoor Karting, both of which are separately owned. These two companies make up about 14 of the mall’s 36 acres.
The rest of the mall is now owned by the joint venture group of Lamar Companies, based in Fairfield, New Jersey, and Real Capital Solutions, based in Louisville, Colorado.
Real Capital is the majority owner, but Lamar will be the operational partner responsible for managing, improving and leasing the center’s available space, confirmed Frank Maresca, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions at Lamar.
Lamar Companies is not affiliated with Lamar Advertising, the company that owns many of the billboards in the area.
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‘Well positioned in the Daytona Beach market’
“Lamar is focused on buying high quality shopping malls, which Volusia Square has been for many years. Only in recent years has it started losing tenants to bankruptcies or relocations,” said Maresca. “We believe it is very well positioned in the Daytona Beach market with its prime location just off Interstates 95 and 4.”
The joint venture partnership, now owned by Volusia Square, plans to invest more than $ 1 million in capital improvements, Maresca said. The planned improvements include upgrading the retail buildings and a new monument sign along International Speedway Boulevard.
“We’re already talking about a new entertainment concept that will take up over 50,000 square meters,” he said, referring to the center’s largest free storefront, which previously housed the Hobby lobby.
The mysterious tenant, already marked as a “pending lease” on Lamar’s site map for Volusia Square, would be new to the Daytona Beach area, Maresca said.
“We’re also talking to a couple of restaurants, including one that is considering taking over the former Pier 1 Imports division. And the Depot restaurant should open early next year in the former hhgregg area, ”he said.
Maresca described Restaurant Depot as a “cost of restaurant supplies and groceries”.
Restaurant Depot describes itself on its website as a “wholesale food and carry food service provider where you can find quality products at low prices. We sell a wide range of products to independent restaurants, caterers and nonprofits”.
On Tuesday, construction workers were seen building the interior of the planned restaurant depot.
The new owners of Volusia Square may also be able to rename the mall, Maresca said. “We’re checking whether we want to keep the name.”
Volusia Square currently has five tenants: Buffalo Wild Wings, Restaurant Depot, Arby’s, LensCrafters, and Dollar Tree. It also has a temporary seasonal Spirit Halloween costume store on former Pier 1 Imports. Taken together, the tenants make up less than a third of the center’s more than 204,000 square meters of retail space.
“International Speedway Boulevard is the hub of the area, and Volusia Square, with its prime location just off Interstates 95 and 4, will attract a lot of tenant interest,” said Whitaker Leonhardt, Senior Director at JLL. “I’m curious how Volusia Square 2.0 looks like.”
Shopping center dates from the mid-1980s
Volusia Square was opened in 1986 at 2455 W. International Speedway Blvd. built just half a mile east of the I-95 / International Speedway Boulevard interchange (Exit 260).
The mall’s tenants in its heyday included a cinema, restaurants and shops. Some of its larger tenants, including Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx, have moved to the new Tomoka Town Center shopping mall in the red-hot LPGA area of Daytona Beach in recent years. Other former anchor tenants in Volusia Square have simply closed, including the hhgregg consumer electronics / home appliance store and the Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us stores.
California developer Chad Hagle hit the headlines in 2019 when he signed up for Volusia Square while announcing ambitious plans to turn it into a futuristic-looking space research and development park called Space Square.
When Hagle’s proposed project failed to attract aerospace-related tenants willing to sign leases, he only bought the former Toys ‘R’ Us / Babies ‘R’ Us building, which he subsequently sold to the operators of Speedway Indoor Karting , an indoor electric vehicle, leased a go-kart track.
Hagle’s option to buy the rest of Volusia Square eventually expired, leaving the center free for marketing to other potential buyers.
Lamar has already added Volusia Square to its real estate portfolio on its website. Real Capital Solutions hadn’t done this on Tuesday.
The seller of Volusia Square was an entity identified as “COLE MT Daytona Beach FL LLC”, a subsidiary of Vareit Inc. based in Phoenix, Arizona, according to the Volusia County Property Appraiser website.
Cole Real Estate Investments, which Vareit acquired in 2014, paid $ 31 million to purchase Volusia Square in November 2010.
“I want to bring it back to its former glory”
The several mile stretch of International Speedway Boulevard between I-95 and the ocean is considered by local community and business leaders to be the “gateway to the world’s most famous beach”.
While strides have been made in beautifying and improving the ISB in recent years, some aging malls along the corridor have seen a retail migration to the fast-growing LPGA area of Daytona Beach three miles north of Daytona Beach.
The LPGA area is home to both the Tanger Outlets, which opened in 2016, the Tomoka Town Center, which opened two years later, and two smaller shopping centers, Latitude Landings and the Shoppes at Williamson Crossing.
Maresca said his company believes Volusia Square has great potential to become a “dominant” mall for the area again. “We’re looking for distressed properties that we can take over and revitalize,” he said. “We’re trying to restore it (Volusia Square) to its former glory.”
This is music to Ghyabi’s ears.
“I think we’re going to see a huge movement of retailers, restaurants and entertainment to the ISB.” said the Ormond Beach-based engineering and transportation consultant.
source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/18/daytonas-volusia-square-draws-12-2m-from-real-estate-developers/
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