Westwood Acquires Denver-Area Retail Center – Commercial Property Executive

Westwood Financial has acquired The Shops at Walnut Creek, a 225,224-square-foot, grocery-anchored retail center in Westminster, Colo.

CBRE Executive Vice President Brad Lyons brokered the transaction on behalf of the seller, InvenTrust Properties. According to CommercialEdge data, the company picked up the asset back in 2015 for $57.1 million.

Shadow-anchored by a Super Target store, The Shops at Walnut Creek was 94 percent leased at the time of the acquisition. The property’s tenant roster includes TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, PetSmart and Dollar Tree, among many others. In a prepared statement, Westwood Financial CEO Mark Bratt said that the shopping center’s mix of tenants place it among the dominant retail centers in the northwest Denver metro.

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The Shops at Walnut Creek occupies more than 25 acres at 10449 Town Center Drive, adjacent to the intersection of Denver Boulder Turnpike and Highway 22. The property is roughly 14 miles northwest of downtown Denver and some 16 miles south of downtown Boulder, in an area where car traffic reaches more than 94,000 vehicles per day.

According to retail traffic data firm Placer.ai, the shopping center is exposed to approximately 60,000 visits per week, serving an area where population growth is expected to increase by 2 percent per year over the next four years.

Recent PwC insights show that, in the year to come, retail transactions are expected to focus on higher-quality assets, targeting good locations that have experiential retail offerings. Flight to quality will be playing a significant role in future retail investor interest.