Aquarian Real Estate Partners, 3650 Capital Loan $72M on Chicago-Area Acquisition – Commercial Observer
Rhino Investments Group has secured $72.3 million in financing to acquire Randhurst Village, a 929,899-square-foot. open-air shopping center outside Chicago, Commercial Observer can first report.
Rhino acquired the property from DLC Management Corp. for $95 million on Sept. 23 in a sale first reported by The Real Deal.
Aquarian Real Estate Partners (AREP) and 3650 Capital provided the acquisition debt, structured as a $45.6 million senior loan from AREP and $26.7 million mezzanine loan from 3650 Capital.
Rhino plans a value-add strategy with the debt capital, including leasing vacant spaces and selling outparcel pieces, according to a release.
Alpha Capital CRE’s Anthony Longo arranged the financing while Newmark’s Conor Lalor, Keely Polczynski and Brian Schneiderman represented DLC Management on the sale.
Jonathan Roth, co-founder and managing partner of 3650 Capital, described Randhurst Village in a statement as “a dominant retail asset with a strong national tenant base,” and noted that the property benefits from strong traffic and has considerable “value-add upside” as an investment due to the affluence of its suburban Chicago market.
“Our tremendous confidence in the Rhino team’s ability to execute its business plan is reflected in our existing relationship, and we are delighted to work with AREP on the financing,” added Roth.
Located at 1 Randhurst Village Drive in Mount Prospect, a suburb 20 miles west of Downtown Chicago and four miles from O’Hare International Airport, Randhurst Village initially opened in 1962 as a revolutionary retail asset: It was simultaneously the Chicago region’s first enclosed mall and the largest enclosed air-conditioned retail space in the United States.
Kevin Holmes, partner and head of AREP, called Randhurst Village “an ideally located property in a strong Chicago submarket.”
While it was initially owned by the Randhurst Corporation — a joint venture among now-defunct retailers Carson Pirie Scott, Wieboldt’s and Montgomery Ward — DLC Management acquired the property in 2015 for roughly $100 million in what was the firm’s largest ever single property acquisition at the time.
The asset had been redeveloped over several years into an open-air shopping center and has attracted 9.3 million annual visits, according to Placer.ai.
Today, the asset’s tenant base includes Costco, Home Depot and Jewel-Osco as well as T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods, Macy’s, an AMC movie theater, PetSmart, DSW, Old Navy and Planet Fitness.
“Randhurst Village is a generational retail asset that we believe is significantly undervalued relative to its market position, traffic profile and income potential,” said Sanjiv Chopra, CEO of Rhino, in a statement.
Brian Pascus can be reached at bpascus@commercialobserver.com.
