Southeast Michigan REIT acquires Walker Home Depot location for $22.5 million

Southeast Michigan REIT acquires Walker Home Depot location for $22.5 million

WALKER — A Southeast Michigan real estate investment trust has acquired a key retail facility along the Alpine Avenue corridor in Walker. 

An affiliate of Bloomfield Hills-based Agree Realty Corp. purchased the 110,380-square-foot commercial building at 2727 Alpine Ave. NE for more than $22.5 million, according to property records. 

A Home Depot store currently occupies the location, which was built in 1996. The seller in the deal that closed on Nov. 14 was Knudson Walker LLC, which originally purchased the facility in 2006 for more than $19.3 million, according to property records. 

Agree Realty (NYSE: ADC) is a self-managed REIT focused on the development and acquisition of net lease retail properties throughout the U.S. Its portfolio consists of 789 assets in 46 states, containing about 14 million square feet of gross leasable space. 

Through the first nine months of the year, the REIT reported that it had invested $579 million in 157 retail net lease properties spread across 37 states. In just the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, the firm invested $252.1 million in 74 properties. Agree also said that it raised $33 million in gross proceeds from the sale of common stock in its most recently completed quarter. 

President and CEO Joey Agree said the company was approaching near record quarterly acquisition volumes during the third quarter. Nearly 90 percent of the company’s rents come from deals with “leading investment-grade retailers including Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, Aldi, Wawa, 7-Eleven, and AutoZone.”

Specifically, Agree told analysts in a conference call to discuss quarterly results that the firm continued to look for ways to grow its portfolio of Home Depot stores, calling them “a great retail partner of ours, obviously a dominant player in the home improvement space.”

Agree Realty expects to acquire $650 million to $700 million in properties for the full year. 

The Walker deal comes amid a healthy retail market along the Alpine Avenue corridor, according to recent research from the Grand Rapids office of Colliers International. 

Vacancy along Alpine Avenue, which includes more than 2.8 million square feet of inventory, was less than 3 percent as of the third quarter. At the same time, asking rents for retail space along Alpine Avenue also increased from $12.79 in the second quarter to $13.99, according to Colliers. Regionwide, the vacancy rate stood at 3.17 percent, while asking rents averaged $13.37. 

“Space continues to fill up quickly, especially second-generation restaurant space, endcaps, mid-box space or new or newer multi-tenant space in major retailer corridors like 28th Street and Alpine Avenue. Although space is limited, commercial real estate experts are finding creative ways to get deals done,” according to the Colliers report.