Brookwood Capital Advisors is putting the Iowa City Marketplace up for auction nearly one year after purchasing the mall for $14.25 million from Core Sycamore Town Center. The listing for 1600 Sycamore St. on RI Marketplace shows that the auction will take place from July 17-19, with a starting bid of $5 million. After adding […]
Brookwood Capital Advisors is putting the Iowa City Marketplace up for auction nearly one year after purchasing the mall for $14.25 million from Core Sycamore Town Center.
The
listing for 1600 Sycamore St. on RI Marketplace shows that the auction will take place from July 17-19, with a starting bid of $5 million.
After adding
Ollie's Bargain Outlet as the mall's largest new tenant in January, the IC Marketplace is now 81% occupied. It will be the first Ollie's Bargain Outlet store in the state of Iowa when it opens this fall.
"With the new Ollie's, we feel it's time to move on to another project and would love to see a local developer continue our good work and bring it to 100% full," said Brookwood Capital founder Ben Hamd in an email to the CBJ.
He added that Brookwood Capital currently has an offer from national discount chain retailer Five Below that the next buyer could act upon. If the new owners decide to bring Five Below to the south side of Iowa City, the mall would be nearly 100% occupied.
Right now, there are two other Corridor-based Five Below locations, in Coralville and Cedar Rapids.
Brookwood is choosing to auction the property to ensure the property is sold, even if it's for a lower price than they could otherwise fetch.
"... Because it's an auction it will be a higher return than on market (10%+ return expected), so somebody will be able to buy it for less than $18.4M," Mr. Hamd explained.
Brookwood Capital has a history buying up partially vacant centers to raise the site’s value before ultimately selling the mall again for a profit. On their website, the group displays completed projects in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Mr. Hamd told the CBJ in October that the company
may sell the IC Marketplace once it is fully stabilized.
Once called Sycamore Mall, Iowa City Marketplace includes a Planet Fitness, Marcus Theaters and local businesses such as
Da Flava Unit.
News of the auction was first
reported by The Gazette.
