Regency Centers Buys Scripps Ranch Marketplace In San Diego

Regency Centers Corporation (NYSE:REG) announced that it has purchased Scripps Ranch Marketplace — a shopping center — in San Diego. This acquisition is anticipated to fortify the company’s presence in the San Diego market.

This purchase underpins Regency’s focus on grocery-anchored assets in thriving sub markets. The property, spanning 132,000 square feet of space, is anchored by supermarket chain Vons, CVS, Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) as well as other regional operators.

The shopping center is located within Scripps Ranch — an affluent master planned community in San Diego — which demonstrates impressive demographics and solid daytime population. Further, the property’s proximity to Interstate 15, off Scripps Poway Parkway, that experiences heavy traffic, makes it easily accessible.

In addition, this property is a long-term asset for the company and will likely witness high footfall as it is situated in a vibrant and growing retail corridor. Management aims to enhance this center and its merchandising mix to upgrade the community destination.

The above-mentioned acquisition also complements Regency’s two existing centers in the locality — 4S Commons Town Center and Twin Peaks Plaza in Poway. In fact, it expands the company’s presence in the San Diego market with more than two million square feet of community-serving retail space. Some other notable Regency shopping centers in San Diego include Costa Verde Center, Balboa Mesa Shopping Center, Friars Mission Center and The HUB Hillcrest Market.

Amid the challenging retail environment, Regency is focused on building a premium portfolio of grocery-anchored shopping centers through tenant-driven acquisitions. Such centers are usually necessity driven and attract dependable traffic. Hence this strategy is appropriate for Regency’s growth.

Particularly, of late, mall traffic has been adversely affected due to the rapid shift in consumers’ shopping preferences toward online channels. With a number of retailers joining the dot-com bandwagon or reconsidering their footprint and opting for store closures, retail landlords, including The Macerich Company (NYSE:MAC) , Taubman Centers (NYSE:TCO) and Kimco Realty Corporation (NYSE:KIM) , have been facing challenging times.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have underperformed the industry over the past year. While Regency Centers’ shares have declined 3.3%, the industry has gained 8.5% during the same time period.

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