NAI/Hunneman Recent Trades Eclipse $18 Million

REVERE — Fresh off brokerage of the landmark Weylu’s Restaurant parcel a mile north on Route One, N A I / H u n n e m a n Commercial Co. has negotiated the sale of another well-known North Shore property in this week’s $10.4 million exchange of 561 Squire Rd., a 119,000-sf shopping center that lost anchor Johnnie’s Foodmaster when that regional grocer shut down last summer but now will serve as home to a major Harley Davidson dealership being relocated from abutting Everett. One piece of the property in Revere went for $7.05 million; the remainder that straddles the Malden border fetched $3.39 million, according to Registry of Deeds records. People’s United Federal Savings loaned the buyers $8.0 million to facilitate the relocation.

“It has the visibility they wanted,” explains NAI/Hunneman principal Scott Dragos, part of the Capital Markets team that includes Douglas Jacoby. The transaction is just one of three sales NAI/Hunneman is finalizing this month following another client’s separate purchase of a 16,000-sf commercial building in Medford Square last week and the pending close of a 13,850-sf Walgreens at 215 Beach St. in Malden owned by the same sellers of the nearby 561 Squire Rd. The total consideration on those trades is $16.2 million, while the Medford deal at 98 George P. Hassett Dr. involved a $2.0 million allcash acquisition by the owner of beauty products firm Elizabeth Grady Co., a Medford institution with global cache that is headquartered at 222 Boston Ave.

According to Dragos, the Revere buyer, Wesley Squire LLC, intends to operate the motorcycle dealership from a vacant 25,000-sf former fitness facility run by Bally’s that comes with a large pylon on a portion of the site that overlooks Route One. The remainder of the plaza will continue to be leased to retail tenants, occupants who presently include Dunkin’ Donuts, Rite Aid Pharmacy and Save A Lot. Registry records show the managers of Wesley Squire LLC to be Alan Contois and Shawn Lillie, also principals at Black Marble Motorcycles LLC, which has the Harley-Davidson dealership at 1760 Revere Beach Pkwy., just four miles south off Route One.

The Walgreen’s is a short drive west across the border into Malden where a private investor is expected to pay $5.8 million to acquire the asset which has just six years remaining on its lease agreement with Walgreens. That actually could prove beneficial to the buyer, maintains Jacoby, given that there will be a greater opportunity to push rents in the densely populated neighborhood that reportedly has made the unit one of the chain’s better performers. In that regard, he says, 561 Squire Rd. could be considered more valuable as interest rates continue to rise, with net-leased properties bearing lengthier commitments less able to adjust to market fluctuations.

The Walgreens buyer was not in the market for the asset or other net-leased product, explains Dragos, but was introduced while looking at One Lewis Wharf, the downtown office building NAI/Hunneman sold in late August, as previously relayed by the Real Reporter. A runner-up on that deal, the seller was looking to complete a 1031 tax free exchange and is turning to the Walgreens instead.

On the Medford negotiations, the buyer was advised by Jones Lang LaSalle Executive VP Ted Wheatley, whereas Dragos and Jacoby assisted the Springstep Foundation Inc. in selling the unique asset that drew prospects due to the modest size of investment, the efficient building layout and visibility along Interstate 93, explains the brokers. Springstep is led by President Deborah A. Hawkins and Treasurer May Marquebreuk. The pace has been frenetic all season for NAI/Hunneman, which in August completed an extended marketing campaign of the former Weylu’s Restaurant in Saugus just north on Route One. That story was detailed exclusively by the Real Reporter in its Aug. 23rd edition.

It does not appear to be slowing up, either, with Dragos reporting another nine deals working their way through the process that have anticipated conclusions in the coming weeks. “We’re been busy all year, and it isn’t slowing at all,” he says. One interesting side note on the 561 Squire Rd. property is that NAI/Hunneman owner Stuart Pratt was the broker who negotiated the land deal where the plaza was subsequently built some 35 years earlier.